Election 2004

Ed Cone, Session Leader

Bloggercon III
78 minutes, 36.1mb, recorded 2004-11-06
Bloggercon III happened just four days after the November 2 election. This is the year that was: the campaigns of George W. Bush and John Kerry, the ghost of Howard Dean, the misadventures of Dan Rather, the clout of Daily Kos and Instapundit. Blogs rerouted the flow of political money and information, opened communication and redesigned organizations.

What did blogs really accomplish, and what did we think they might do that they didn't?

There are important stories at other levels of politics, too. Blogs and related strategies are part of the political toolkit in elections from the Register of Deeds contest in my North Carolina county to the highest-profile state-wide races. Let's get specific, name names, count votes and volunteers and hits and comments and cash, figure out what it was that we just witnessed.

But as we sketch the landscape so recently traversed, we will also be looking at where local and national politicos might go next. That's the big story at all levels of the game.

In 2004 we saw version 1.0 of weblog politics. In coming campaigns, blogs and bloggers will be expected to deliver results. We can help define some of the expectations, limitations, and possibilities for weblogs in future campaigns -- in your town next year, your congressional district and perhaps a Senate race in your state in 2006, and back on the national stage in the race for the White House 2008.

You'll find blog coverage of this session by:
Renee Blodgett

See the complete IT Conversations archives of sessions from Bloggercon III.


This free podcast is from our Bloggercon series.