McCain widens dialogue on blogs

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign is trying to tap a new audience of potential voters by taking his campaign message straight to liberal and nonpolitical issues-based blogs, which reach millions of readers but don't often delve into conservative politics.

The strategy was in full swing yesterday when Mr. McCain invited non-conservative bloggers to join his regular blogger conference call, just hours after he delivered a major speech previewing his war strategy and other priorities for a first presidential term.

It already has started a war among liberal bloggers over how to react to Mr. McCain's overture.

In answering the first question on the call, Mr. McCain said his likely Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, lacks the judgment to be commander in chief, which set him up for a bruising from the readers at TalkingPointsMemo.com, a liberal-leaning site that joined in the call.

Blogger Greg Sargent said it amounted to "what may be [Mr. McCain's] most direct attack yet on Barack Obama's national security credentials." But commenters were split: Some took aim at Mr. McCain, some said they were thankful for the intelligence on "what the enemy is planning," and others lashed out at Mr. Sargent, saying he should have been harsher in evaluating Mr. McCain's attack.

"This IS a Democratic blog, and as such, it would seem to me that there SHOULD be SOME bias with regards to how YOU report of McCain's craziness, as opposed to treating his ranting and attacks with a sort of dignity they and he DO NOT deserve," wrote one emphasis-abundant reader.

Mr. McCain's campaign said the Web outreach is a logical extension of an attempt to reach voters beyond his base. It also builds on his successful use of conference calls with conservative bloggers during the Republican primary, which blunted many of the harshest criticisms of the senator.

"The plan is to take the work we've already built on with conservative bloggers and to open up a dialogue with non-conservative bloggers and even nonpolitical bloggers," said Patrick Hynes, Mr. McCain's point man for blog outreach.

"We hope to be the most accessible and transparent campaign in history, to take advantage of what we think is one of the campaign's strongest assets, which is Senator McCain himself, and frankly to empower voters who are also bloggers to get the answers they need to decide who to vote for."

A call last week focused on Mr. McCain's health care plans. Top McCain advisers talked with health-care-specific bloggers and sites that cater to mothers, a demographic that the campaign figured would be interested in health care issues. The campaign also deployed adviser Carly Fiorina, former chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard, to talk with major health site WebMD's reporter.