easy to ignore

It is quite a testament to how much influence blogs wield these days that the mere existence of one can cause a Republican to compliment a Democratic candidate for Florida governor.

It is also a testament to the smarts of Jim Davis’ campaign that it continues to be the only campaign recognizing said influence, at least to the point that they thought it important to establish their own blog (Rod Smith does at least make mention, but merely includes links to blogs in hopes someone might actually talk about him – by the way, I did not include a link to Smith’s blog list because the link is broken as of the time of this post). I’ve mentioned before that Charlie Crist first featured a blog on his site, but the sheer half-assedness of that venture becomes more conspicuous every day.

When I first checked out Crist’s campaign site, there was a large picture – my memory may be failing me, but I think it was an extremely inappropriate picture of a pen – that linked to the campaign blog. Rather than make any attempts to expand the blog, the webmasters’ apparent shame has lead them to cut the picture and instead include a small link under “Media Center.” The entire site has been redesigned, so the lack of effort is obviously not for lack of time.

By the way, there has been no entry to this so-called blog since January 6. Perhaps Crist is still recovering from an Epiphany-related hangover.

Meanwhile Matt Thornton has kept up Davis’ blog quite regularly. There’s a comment on his latest post hoping that Jim Davis himself will soon blog on what is purported to be his blog. Frankly if Mr. Davis found time to blog regularly I would question his commitment to both his campaign and his job. Leave the blogging to people who either get paid to do it or have too much time on their hands and little need for sleep.

I still cannot muster the idealistic excitement some people have for the idea of a blogging candidate, but then again excitement doesn’t suit me all that well – that picture in my profile is a pretty good representation of what I’m like most of the time. This contrast may however speak volumes for the candidates’ ability to carry something through, or at the very least to their ability to hire staff to carry through in their place.