On Bloggers and Their Bosses

Can the statements of a paid consultant be attributed to the candidate who pays him a healthy monthly fee?

We’re learning more and more details of the relationship between Mark Kennedy, candidate for U.S. Senate, and Michael Brodkorb, paid Kennedy campaign consultant and purveyor of Minnesota Democrats Exposed.  In relation to this information, I asked several political staffers at various levels of DFL campaign organizations for comment.Their responses revealed a few common themes.  While it’s not technically illegal for staffers or consultants to comment publicly on their race or on other races, it’s generally considered a bad thing to do.  It leaves the staffer/consultant’s employer open to guilt-by-association attacks and distracts from the campaign’s message.  An example might be a consultant publicly calling commenters “Nimrods” for asking questions about the consultant’s analysis on an issue – does the consultant’s employer agree with this name-calling?  Is this statement being issued on behalf of the campaign, or on behalf of oneself?  Where do we draw the line?

Perhaps the name-calling and thinly-veiled character attacks are being put out there as a blogger, and not a paid consultant to at least two major Republican campaign organizations.  Take off hat one, replace with hat two, and poof.  If a disclaimer is necessary for these kinds of posts, a situation to which all indications point, is it even possible to separate the paid operative from the blogger?

For an example of real disclosure and strong ethical conduct, look at Tim Tagaris in Connecticut.  He stopped blogging at the popular Swing State Project when he went to work for the DNC, and now runs the Lamont campaign’s official blog. He is upfront and transparent about the way that arrangement works.  Locally we have the example of Mark Gisleson, who writes Norwegianity, and completely shut his blog down while running Blog for Bell for the Senate campaign of DFLer Ford Bell.  Once that effort was over, Norwegianity came back on.  Mark may be a bit more crude and bit further left than some of us, but in that case, to allow the perception of impropriety was to admit such impropriety was worthy of accusation.

Why is any of this important?  The media needs to recognize that not all bloggers are equal in their sources, the fees they charge for their efforts, and their level of involvement in the campaigns whose opponents they attack.  It is the responsibility of the media, bloggers and newspaper writers alike, to clearly demonstrate for their readers the source of information we relate.  To do otherwise is simply dishonest.