Thursday, March 22, 2012

The Six Great Campaign Questions Answered!

     Those who drop in on Pomp & Punishment to find out what color (or, "colour," as Sir Winston would spell it) of the Queen's pumps are today, or whether the Pope will finally get off his butt and reinstate The Inquisition, are doubtless as pleased as P&P's proprietor that he has been "interviewed recently about the 2012 election by one of the Blogosphere's best political blogs, Sergio Politics."
     The text of the full interview is here.
     Of course it's hard to keep up with the comings and goings of blogs; having not heard of Sergio Politics, I naturally clicked to see what the site is about. When I clicked the "About" tab to learn more, I read, "Political blogger interested in 2012 politics." From the "Contact" tab I learned the proprietor is one Sergio Veskovic.
     I read the latest post, titled "Mitt Romney and His Voters!":

          Mitt Romney won Illinois primary by a wide margin but this was not a knock-out  and Rick Santorum will continue to fight. The Illinois results underline a trend that is emerging about Mitt Romney voters. They are less religious, college-educated and economically better off than for example Rick Santorum voters or average Republican primary voters. So far data shows that every vote costs Romney four times as much as Rick Santorum is spending to win voters. In numbers it looks like this: $12.70 per voter and more than $90,000 per delegate for Romney, while Santorum’s numbers are $3.01 per voter and close to $29,000 per delegate. Santorum’s numbers are the lowest cost per vote and delegate of all the remaining GOP candidates. To win in November Mitt Romney will need to make some progress with lower income voters. Being very successful as Mitt Romney is doesn’t necessarily translate into looking out for the average guy. This doubt is in part responsible for a 53% of Romney voters in exit polls expressing reservations about their vote.

     The more I read the more I got the flavor of the blog and the insights of its author. Take February 7th's "Romney and Gingrich- Men With issues!":

          Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are candidates with unanswered questions. For example Mitt Romney is unsure if he is moderate or conservative? And Newt Gingrich, well he needs to explainhis his actions to voters since he has been behaving angrily in this campaign. So let us start with Romney. Although he was born into wealthy family he made his own fortune as a successful business leader and enterprenuer. Me made his millions as an investor. Fairly and squarly. So why is he having trouble explaining his fortune or answering questions on issues such as his own taxes or very poor and safety net for very poor. It seems that he can’t talk about his personal business. Not a good sign. And what about Newt Gingrich. He has trouble listening rather than talking. Many advisers told Gingrich not to attack Romney on his character and to start focusing on his policies. What he did at his post-Nevada speech on Saturday night? He proceeded to hammer Romney on character issues and other non-relevant issues.

     I found myself wondering why a died-in-the-wool fan of Santorum like P&P would want to give an interview to what seems like a pretty rah-rah-Romney site.  Scrolling down the Sergio Politics page, I read these headlines: "Romney wins big in Illinois!" (March 21); "Illinois GOP Primary- Romney Ahead!" (March 20); "Romney leads in Illinois!" (also March 20); "Romney wins Puerto Rico!" (March 19).
     But I could see that Sergio is a probing and incisive interviewer, dedicated to getting all kinds of political experts to opine on the race for President. He interviewed Pomp & Punishment March 22; on March 18 came "Interview with Shawn from Conservative T&T!"  On the 16th came "Interview with Smitty of The Other McCain Blog!", following the interview with Robert Stacy McCain of the same blog on the 13th.
     On the 9th he interviewed "Rob Port of SayAnythingBlog.com!" February 27 it was the turn of Kenneth from KennethDurden.com. February 15 Eric Dondero of "Libertarian-Republican.Net Blog!" stepped up the mic with Sergio. Before him came Maggie's Notebook; "Dave Blount of MoonBattery Blog!" "Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs!"; "Bob Parks of Black-and-Right Blog!"; and so on.
     I was most taken, however, with the wide-ranging questioning Sergio Politics puts its interview guests through. Here's a sample:

Pomp & Punishment: 
What are your thoughts about the GOP campaign so far?

Conservative T&T:
What are your thoughts about the GOP campaign so far?

Smitty:
What are your thoughts about the GOP campaign so far?

The Other McCain: 
What are your thoughts about the GOP campaign so far?

Rob Port:
What are your thoughts about the GOP campaign so far?

Kenneth from Kenneth Durden.com:
What are your thoughts about the GOP campaign so far?

Eric Dondero:
What are your thoughts about the GOP campaign so far?

Maggie's Notebook:
What are your thoughts about the GOP campaign so far?

Dave Blount:
What are your thoughts about the GOP campaign so far?

Pamela Geller:
What are your thoughts about the GOP campaign so far?

Bob Parks:
What are your thoughts about the GOP campaign so far?


     This was followed, with only a couple of interviews where one was left out, by these, in every interview as well:

What do you think of Romney vs. Santorum race?

How do you think Social Media will play a role in this campaign? and can you compare it to Obama’s campaign of 2008?
Ron Paul has a great Internet following what do you think other candidates are not doing right or need to do better?
What is your opinion of Super PACs and its influence in this GOP race?
 If you have some other thought you would like to share please feel free.

     Sergio Politics is a keeper. I'm adding him to my reading list.

1 comment:

  1. Nice catch, Waldo.

    I was struck by P&P's response to the final question, which asked if he had any other thoughts he'd like to share. His response: "This interview is a wonderful example of how bloggers can and should collaborate with one another. To a large measure, we are the media today and there are so many creative things we could do, such as cross-posting, pooling together for professional development, collaborating on major research projects, and sharing live video feeds. I strongly suspect that the use of live, streaming video is something we will see much more of in the future."

    I hate to break it to Mr. Cassidy and the others who live in his odd world, but bloggers are hardly "the media today." The work on his blog and many other blogs, including mine, for that matter, is largely based on what appears in the media. Therefore, bloggers can hardly be construed to be the media.

    And if P&P thinks "Sergio Politics" is the type of blog that he can partner with, he's been completely bamboozled by whomever operates Sergio Politics. But that's hardly surprising.

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