In the heart of election season, the political blogs are in everything and the bloggers are everywhere. According to NPR’s Power of a Political Blog, political blogs have been a popular form of news since the time during the Monica Lewinski affair. In today’s society many people no longer rely on just the newspaper but check the blogs daily to see what stories have the “blogosphere” humming. There are many blogs that are solely focused on blaming liberals or President Busy for everything that is wrong with the world, and because many are lacking authentic resources there are constantly biased headlines. Many bloggers are actually political operatives simply pretending to be average citizens. Its unlikely, however, that they are reporters because they are not coming up with new material. Often, they include links to other authoritative sites that will potentially further enforce their message. It is evident that the blog world has truly changed the structure and power of journalism, and while often argued, bloggers stand firm and confident in their relatively new position of power.
After reading through multiple different political blogs, it became evident that the election is currently revolving around money. There were countless blogs on the bundlers that are providing funds for the candidates and whether the money was “tainted” or not. In fact, Senator Obama is giving over $40 thousand in campaign contributions to a charity. Senator Hillary Clinton also returned $850,000 raised by Norman Hsu who is facing charges of federal fraud. On the other hand, Mike Huckabee is not admitting to the names of those financially supporting him. John Edwards, as seen on the David Letterman Show, was asked about former running mate John Kerry’s endorsement to Obama. Even while Edwards attempted to gain approval through laughs on the late-night talk show, the finances of the election were still brought to the audience’s attention. Every election, even for smaller, local positions, I find myself wondering why so much money is put into campaigning. Does it really matter that they can raise millions of dollars, just for their campaign when that money could actually go towards bettering education or eliminating poverty? It just doesn’t seem worth it to me.
