John Edwards reaches to Tech Community via Scoble, and Deploys Social Media

Politicians will be held to a different standard that us businesspeople, who make no pretenses about selling things.

Woe to the politician who reminds voters that the politician is a peddler of influence. But this works both ways- the politician who can convince people they are selling a better future will be even more empowered than the businesspeople who use a better future as one of their selling points.

I know an aspiring politician who will not keep a public blog because everything is on record, immediately, and their is no chance of taking it back. Take this from Edwards blog:

"It was easy for Congress to characterize bankrupt families as "deadbeats" and ignore the reality that more than 90 percent of all bankruptcies are due to medical emergencies, job loss, divorce or a death in the family."

Used to be, someone would report a politician saying that. But now Edwards himself has said it, and if that fact is proved wrong, what will happen? What if he is not as accurate as he could be?

In many cases it does not bug me that a corporation makes a minor error, and if I read a blog entry that is later wrong, and the author retracts their incorrect statement, and no one got hurt, fine.

But if Edwards or any politiblogger is on record with a series of inaccuracies, how much faith will I have in them? Doesn't matter that everyone makes mistakes: if one person is vocal, and the second is not, maybe I feel that the second is more trustworthy/competent.

As you say Jeremiah, this corporation/politician comparison will be interesting.

Are technology people really normally republicans? I've met not even one in the 2 years I've been blogging.

Nice idea, but on their own blogs John, Elizabeth and Cate last posts are respectively:
- Oct 16th, 2006
- Jun 21st, 2006
- Mar 5th, 2006

No further comment necessary. Suggest they hire Robert as blog advisor.

Robyn...These were Robert's observations from the valley. We should take a poll seriously.

Colin.

Oh boy, you ARE right. It's been a while for them, I hope this gives them so new energy.

Really great news. So proud to be involved with this company. Just fantastic.

Brian

Isn't everything a politician says on air, to tv, or in a blog on record? Why would we treat a blog any different than a person's voice?

Jeremiah,
We should treat everything they say as on record, but they don't, so I hear from my aspiring politician friend.

We can link to a blog easier (in most cases) than we can link to what they say.

John Edwards knows a lot about poverty, after all, he's helped throw a lot of people into it with:

- his co-sponsorship of H-1b visas,

- his support for illegal aliens,

- his vote for MFN-China

but what about stuff like iraq war and the patriot act?

well, he voted for them too

About the only think you can say for Edwards is, he spent so much time running for president that he didnt have time to do more damage as senator