Cavala: for Better or Worse, the Blog World’s “Public” is not the Voting Public

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

As someone who uses the “blog” world regularly, let me be the first to throw stones at it and especially at its use in the world of political analysis.

Internet communication creates the illusion that there is an unseen audience consuming the information and opinions presented there. The success of some sites and of the Obama campaign in fundraising gives impetus to this notion. I would suppose this is the feeling that long-time editorial writers for print outlets and letters-to-the-editor writers have a conviction that they are involved in ‘shaping’ public opinion.

Some blogs do indeed attract a following. “Commentaries” on expressed opinions can run into dozens, and that creates the illusion of a large audience. If your blog attracts attention nationally, the audience can run into the thousands (nationally).

But it is still a drop in the bucket.

The best example I’ve seen recently was the aborted campaign for Congress by Professor Lawrence Lessig. Lessig is a Stanford law professor who achieved some notoriety among internet fanciers for his libertarian challenge to copyright laws. He is influential among the many thousand net users who follow his entertaining blog.

This Spring Lessig tried to activate that network in support of his campaign for the Democratic nomination for Congress in CD 12 – a Silicon Valley based district. He raised some money over the internet and commissioned a public opinion survey to see how wide his audience was among actual voters in a specific place.

Lessig discovered that it was neither wide enough nor deep enough for him to be a serious competitor against the phenomenon that was (now) Congresswoman Jackie Speier – and he retired from the field.

This vignette simply underscores one of the great truisms about American Politics. Most people – even most of the likely voters – don’t spend much time thinking about politics, government, elections or political campaigns (possibly excepting the actions of Presidents and for three months every four years, Presidential candidates).