Posted by aogWednesday, 08 November 2006 at 10:14 TrackBack Ping URL

Noise, noise, noise

Earlier this morning I mentioned the Washington DC bubble, which got to me thinking — how, exactly, can a Congress critter penetrate the bubble? Old Media is clearly living in its own little world¹ so it’s hardly a good source of information. It also seems unlikely that the K Street lobbiests are of much use as a guide either.

We would like to think that the blogosphere provides a clear window on to the American Street, but is that really true? People who write about politics on the internet are hardly normal and one can plausible wonder just how well they know what the American Street is thinking, much less how accurately they would relay it if they did know.

I don’t have any good answers, but it is something to keep in mind when you’re tempted to say “why don’t they just do the right thing?”. It’s also an argument for voting based on character, because character will still come through despite the noise.

¹ Junkyard Blog has a classic example of this, which is that the Haggard story has been a top story for the last several days, as a major mid-term election has taken place.