1. I have no way of evaluating its impact, but on my previous blog (2005), I supported Guilford County Commissioner Skip Alston's opponent during Alston's attempt at re-election as the president of the NC NAACP.
Curmilus Dancy II (The Political Agitator), from the Rocky Mount area, discovered and linked to several of my posts against Alston's re-election and supporting his opponent, the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber. (Curmilius is still blogging away.)
Alston lost, which he had not previously.
I don't know if blogging contributed to that result or not.
But I do know that about that time, I was thinking that Alston was probably unbeatable and that efforts against him were probably futile.
I was wrong.
For the right price, I'd be willing to blog against Alston in 2008, should he choose to run for re-election as a Guilford County Commissioner.
Anyone who's thinking about running against Alston should just keep these two things in mind: a) Alston's now beatable and b) if blogging might have had an influence before, it might have an influence again.
2. Very shortly after first meeting some of our local bloggers, a group of us organized a candidates' forum.
It wasn't as well attended as I would have liked, but it did attract some attention, and each of the 8 at-large candidates for the Greensboro City Council attended.
3. I also blogged about supporting this museum. (I hadn't visited the still-unopened museum's website in quite some time; I do like the provocative nature of its current homepage.)
My efforts there must have not made too much of a difference; the museum's STILL not open!
* Two years ago is REAL OLD-SCHOOL when measured in blogging time!
2 comments:
Hardy,
I too was initally disapointed with the in-person turnout for the candidates forum. However, you'll recall that I wrote and posted audio of the questions and answers on Greensboro101. Those articles were some of the most popular in the site's history. Because the material was made available online, the candidate forum ended up reaching thousands of people.
Roch,
Thanks for reminding me of the good work you did after the forum.
If my memory serves me well, the forum got better pre-press than post-press in the mainstream media.
I was glad that the News & Record covered the district candidates forum this past Thursday--though the article's ability only to highlight a few points (because of length) underscored blogging's potential to take stories further.
Sandy Carmany has already done that, as has Joe Guarino. I may try to add a few more points, more specific to the candidates themselves.
As I tried to indicate in one of my posts about the district forum, some of the candidates NEED to blog so that they can improve upon their performance.
And those who were absent DESPERATELY need to blog as a means of trying to catch up a little.
(I've been meaning to e-mail Joe Wilson or post a comment on his blog suggesting he might want to follow-up since he wasn't at the forum.)
Sincerely,
Hardy
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