Did bloggers save McCain?
DON’T BLAME ME, I was not blogging yet, AND, I was a Fred Thompson supporter.
Even as talk radio was brutalizing Sen. John McCain in the Republican presidential primaries, conservative bloggers reached a respectful truce with the Arizona senator over touchy issues and gave him what the campaign called a “tremendous positive psychological” boost.
The main reason: Mr. McCain’s blogger outreach, the most extensive of any presidential campaign in either party, helped keep him afloat in the dark days last summer when the major press was sizing up his campaign grave. During those times, Mr. McCain got attention and digital ink from the bloggers he invited to biweekly conference calls, and got a chance to talk policy.
“During the unpleasantness, whenever Senator McCain put himself in front of reporters, the question was always, ‘How much did you raise today, when are you dropping out,’ ” said Patrick Hynes, a conservative blogger who Mr. McCain hired in 2006. “And then we’d put him on the phone with bloggers, and they’d want to talk about Iraq, and pork and chasing down al Qaeda.”
Like Captain Ed, I think the role of the blogs is over done in this piece.
Seems I recall many blogs whipping up on McCain just as talk radio was. I still believe the media wanted McCain, and did its best to hurt Thompson and Romney, while Rudy took himself out of the game with his “screw the early states” strategy. Huck? Well the media helped create his surge, and they would have gladly had him with the nomination too. They wanted the most Liberal Republican to get it, and look, they did just that!