Six Tips for Jimmy Stewart

I was a little surprised this morning when I found a couple of comments on a recent blog this morning signed by one of my favorite movie stars--Jimmy Stewart.  I was particularly surprised since I remembered when Jimmy Stewart died and I was pretty sure he was still dead.

One of my all time favorite Jimmy Stewart movies was Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, depicting that heartless swamp of a national Capital the way it should be, where truth, virtue and reason, backed by spunky kids prevail after a filibuster that everyone listens to.

Well, it turns out that the new Jimmy Stewart is really and truly a candidate for Congress in Ohio and he blogs. Not only does he blog, but he asked for opinions on campaign blogs. I think it was an open-ended question and I encourage you all to visit his blog and post either here or there how you think he can improve it.

Jimmy, by reading your blog, I'm not sure whether I would vote for you or not and that seems to me to be the fundamental problem. As you stated in your earlier comment, you are worried about what the opposition say do with any imprudent comments so you hedge at saying anything at all. You take firm stands on safe issues like billboards. I suspect there's more than that you hope to accomplish as a Congressman, but I'll stick to the issue of blogging.

Here are six top-of-mind thoughts.

• Go directly to your constituents. Blogging gives you direct access to the people in your district. Screw your political opponents.  To Hell with journalistic sharpshooters.  You can have direct, two-way conversations with the people in your district.
• Ask and Listen.  Forget about the polls. You can use your blog to ask you voters what matters to them. If you ask people, they will tell you a great deal more than you will get from numeric canvas sheets.
• Show your passion. OK billboards are ugly. But what is you vision for a better life for your district your state, our country and world? Be candid.  You will be surprised at how starved Americans are to find the soul inside a politician.  Any politician. Passion is so much better than a resume checklist f qualifications.
• Show your authority.  Tell people what you know. Don't strut and emote.  Just talk to your constituents like they were your neighbors and you were chatting over a backyard fence.
• Ignore your opponents. Everybody has grown tired of the crap you guys hurl at each other. It's embarrassing, and it has actually become boring.  Talk directly to your people and listen to them.
• Open Comments. Leave up all comments except anonymous, libelous, obscene and racist ones.  If people print lies about you, those who know you will jump to your defense.  It's hard to believe but if that's what happens at Microsoft, then surely people will do that  in defense of Jimmy Stewart.

Got some tips for Jimmy Stewart? Please leave them here or on your own blogs. Please be polite. Taking potshots at politicians is easy. But maybe, just maybe we can convince Jimmy and a few more to use blogs to engage in direct dialog with the people they are supposed to serve. That would be so much more pleasant than the dead trees left on our doorsteps and the ugliness they bring to TV screens.

Comments

[Jimmy Stewart]

Shel,

Thanks for the advice.

One quick note: I'm running for the Ohio House, our State legislature, not the Congress. I don't want to leave you with the wrong impression.

In our comments, we filter for hate speech and obscenity. I didn't think about libel. That's a very good point, though, and not something we want to risk. (Avoiding libel also goes well with Ignore Your Opponents, because most libelous comments would probably be about an opponent. People haven't yet used my comments to libel me.)

This is my first race, and I'm a little new to it. There are things that I know a lot about: physics, teaching, the value of education, the crappy state of Ohio health care availability, and basic issues of right and wrong. These are things I need to talk more about.

There's a little voice that asks "should you write about this?" when I begin a post. I need to tune that voice way down. Challengers don't win by playing safe, and (more to the point of our topic) who wants to read a "safe" blog? If its reads like a press release it's booring as hell. There's no voice behind the words.

A group of Ohio bloggers have created Meet the Bloggers (http://www.meetthebloggers.net/). They assemble for group interviews with politicians, which are podcasted, and the transcripts published. To the best of my knowledge, any polite Ohio blogger is welcome to attend their interviews, and ask questions.

This gets me excited. Their interviews last an hour, or more. This lets you go into a lot more depth than most mainstream press interviews. I've been reaching out to local bloggers to do email interviews (transcribing oral interviews is awfully time-consuming); that combined with the traditional blog post / comment / follow-up cycle lets the netroots really dig into an issue. Its great for me (I win a race about issues, I lose a race about media buys), its great for local activists, and its the kind of politics I like.

Now I need to write more intimately, less like a press release.

[Blogging is a waste of time for politicians]

The Ohio primary election was on 2 May 2006. Out of a slate of four Democrats in the primary, Jimmy Stewart came in dead last. He got 15.7% of the vote. If you don't win the primary, you win nothing. Electoral politics is a winner-take-all blood-sport.

In the entire history of his blog, from 2 December 2005 to 28 April 2006, a grand total of six (6) comments were posted by readers. Six. People just don't read blogs about local races. If you're lucky, they'll read one or two local newspaper articles about it. That's it.

And you wanted him to spend more time on this, as opposed to making phone calls, fund-raising, doing events, doorbelling?

Have you ever run for elected office? Your suggestions might have more insight and weight if you had. Have you even been a campaign manager? Have you even volunteered more than 20 hours for a campaign? (And I don't mean online activities like surfing.)

State Representative; District 22; Ohio Democratic Party
* John Patrick Carney, 2,622
* Jan Fleming, 1,508
* Brian Patrick McCann, 1,013
* Jimmy Stewart, 960
http://www.smartvoter.org/2006/05/02/oh/frn/state_legislature.html

[shel israel]

Footnote. Jimmy Stewart got elected and is now in his third term. Back in June 2006, he may have been the first blogging candidate to be elected to a statewide office in the US.