PolicyByBlog

Blogging is supposed to be a natural effusion of thought and emotion: modern politics is all about control, staying "on message," getting out your sound and visbytes, and reducing risks of gaffes. Hence the attractions of real blogging are low for frontrunner candidates like Hillary Clinton. And, well, PolicyByblog is a non-partisan blog but I don't think I'm stepping too far out of line to agree with those that characterize Senator Clinton's personal style as not naturally intimate and emotive.

Still...one can imagine she could blog in bursts--very controlled bursts! 

In perspective, the first-person quality of a politician's blog is enhanced when they speak to us from interesting, even exotic, situations. Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont democrat, blogs in "real time" from the floor of the Senate. "More from the Floor" updates up to several times a day. During Ronald Reagan's funeral, Representative Mike Pence (R-IN) stood inside the national cathedral and typed directly into his Blackberry for the following blog entry:

"My wife and I stand amidst the most powerful people in the world....We have stood beside presidents and princes, prime ministers and leaders of every stripe but that is not what moved us these past two hours. There was the undeniable presence of the Spirit of the Lord in this place and it was a sweet presence...[when] the casket swept by to our right, and tears filled my eyes."

In each case, we are not only invited to listen to the polblogger, describing eyewitnessed events, but to feel as if he were relating to us intimate asides about events to which we would normally have no access. More important to the politician, such utterances bypass big media; they can show and tell us at length, without being subject to outside editing or commentary by an interlocutor.

Travels abroad--to zones of war or danger or diplomatic sensitivity--seem ready made for such "follow me" polblog narratives. When, in December 2004, Senator Jim Talent (R-Tennessee) made an official visit to the Middle East, including a stop in Iraq, his office posted "Sen. Jim Talent's special travel event blog." Not surprisingly, the focus was on what the Senator saw, what he thought about it, and his personal encounters with Missourians serving in the U.S. armed forces in the region:

And this brings me to an important point. Even in Baghdad, the soldiers are operating largely in a stable environment. They are able to patrol among the civilian population and they do so. They are constantly performing public services and supervising contracting operations. They receive many expressions of support from the public every day.

For example, I saw a picture at First Cav headquarters of a young, poor Iraqi boy in the middle of Sadr City (which is basically a ghetto). He had gotten some chalk and drawn a huge picture of the First Cav division patch on a stone that was almost as big as he was. Above the stone he had written the word “Good.” That boy knows that the Americans are protecting him from the extremists and are giving Iraq hope for the first time in decades. I will try to get this picture for the blog or my Website.

I received many similar reports from soldiers in Baghdad.

I also heard consistently, during my two days both in the South and in Baghdad, frustration at how the war is being reported. Everyone to whom I spoke, in the military, in the Iraqi cabinet, and in the State department, believes that the effort is going well--though everyone is very cautious--and that an unbalanced picture is being presented. The troops are particularly frustrated; I got an earful on this subject when I had dinner with the First Cav soldiers on Saturday night.

Call it polblogging from ground zero...

This could be Hillary's model for real--and controlled--blogging. A foreign trip, to a war zone would be best because it would fit with what is, I assume, her basic campaign theme: "PUT A SECURITY MOM IN THE WHITEHOUSE."