Also, she did withdraw from the race because she felt she could not win. I am running for a social statement
and hope I can help the city.
She was looking for power , and I am running to effect social change.
this is one of the many reasons I classify her as a termagant,
JerryJacobsForMayor.com

It also takes nothing away from his use of bloggers to attack his opponent. That he knows who’s swinging real bats makes me want to vote for him.
I’m not sucking your toe here. Your work is That good. You are the Moon not the Finger, you move the tide not simply stir the eddies. There isn’t anything you can do about that Dambala. Perry got this in spades, oops, and he didn’t pay a dime for it. Try to imagine how much Leslie Jacobs spent on just her computer dept… oh cheezus, and still she Never Got It!
Laid it out on her doorstep and she acted like it was a burning bag of kitty litter!
Don’t get me started.

While arguably not in that number, I see Nola Bloggers like you et al mentioned above effecting the body politic by saying what can be said clearly… with backup… and all the rest we must piss over in silence. Fortunately y’all also serve it up with half shells of humor on the side. I refuse to consider MSM journalistic news.
I see that symbiotic relationship between bloggers and MSM — and raise you one afterbirth of the 4th Estate.

In regards to your theory and the overarching “internet campaign” discussion per the HuffPo link, it might surprise you to know that I had no idea I was even linked from that HuffPo piece until you pointed it out. Looking at my Statcounter data….I think maybe 5 people actually clicked on those links from that HuffPost column. I get much more traffic daily from local blog links, i.e., Jeffry, Eli, Oyster, and in particular, I get a lot of traffic if I am linked in the comment section of NOLA articles.

My point being, I think one great big Perry sign off the Read Blvd. exit in the East, or a single sign off the Gentilly Blvd. exit would have produced 1000 times the exposure and name recognition that the HuffPo article did.

Also, as far as having influence in an election, I don’t really think blogs have as much effect as we bloggers would like to think. I think only if the MSM actually picks the story up, will it produce an effect, i.e., Eli’s posting the video of Georges’ meltdown at OPDEC and NOLA.com linking it.

This is all good discussion though. I would love for Loyola’s mass media dept. to host a forum (maybe after the election) which discusses the effect of the internet on campaigns and politics. I would love to participate and listen to that conversation.

In my case, I have published two stories, Henry’s resume/lawsuits, and Tom Arnold brandishing a gun in the courthouse, which have made it into the MSM fray during this election. I also know that information came into my blog anonymously, but I am sure it was all submitted with political motivation.

For me, I am more concerned about what is true and what isn’t. I have to make a decision if the issues actually warrant further investigation and even more importantly, whether or not they should be published. I have received a lot of stuff during this election which either wasn’t true, or which I decided really didn’t warrant publishing. I realize that is a highly subjective process and I haven’t hidden my biases towards certain candidates, i.e., I really don’t like Jay Batt, but the one standard I demand of myself is that I verify that what I have published is true to the best of my ability and limited resources. Clearly I have biases, but I think that’s also the really interesting effect of blogs and the internet on democracy as opposed to pre-internet where we only digested what the MSM chose to serve up.

I also think the whole notion of “objectivity” in journalism needs to be brought back up for discussion. While mainstream media resources, politicians, and journalism professors may tend to portray blogs as echo chambers, uninformed pundits, and biased conjecture, I find it ironic that they often fail to mention they’re own special interests, bias and punditry. I am witnessing that hypocrisy on an almost daily basis during this election.

It’s actually forcing me to rethink what role we, as bloggers, serve in this community and whether or not I should rethink my notions of “proper journalism” altogether. To reference Matt Taibi, we need really pissed off people who proceed without caution and rip government, corporations, etc. a new asshole at every turn and even with extreme bias. I agree with him…I think that’s an inherent need of a healthy democracy.

However, not being a part of the MSM establishment poses tremendous challenges. I was in contact with both the Henry campaign and the Arnold campaign before I wrote the posts about them and neither one would go on record. They, naturally, accused me of being “played” by opposing campaigns, but yet they both refused to go on the record and respond to the allegations. They were more than happy to bitch at me and threaten lawsuits, but they wouldn’t engage in a discussion on the record. I got the expected response from them, “We don’t have time to respond to some stupid blogger.” Yet they had time to contact me and tell me how I was a fool for pursuing the stories.

I think there’s a symbiotic relationship forming between bloggers/citizen media and the MSM…I have no idea what the scope of repercussions and benefits will be, but I would love it if an institute of higher education would start that conversation on a local level. I also think it’s fascinating to look at how blogs/citizen media are affecting elections.

I went off on a tangent, but I think this is interesting stuff which needs further discussion.

Perry’s father was an English professor. Why would he need to “network” with intellectual pals of his girlfriend? He’s been around them intellectuals whole life.

Which brings me to Huff Piece wit’da American Zombie linkages.
I have no beef with the tactic Perry is using to attack Henry from the side. Indeed it fascinates me to no end.
The way he uses his “partner” to lay out the story is kinda, well… ‘divested’ as well to put it nicely. But I find the Tactic brilliant.
And, I have no “beef” with any of this, least of all a fear of so called “campaign funding trickery”. Jeez, it’s politics. Perry apparently doesn’t have the support on his own turf so he has to go Nationwide, just like Jindal? Or, would you like to argue that the Child-Governor isn’t raising so much money out-of-state to run for even Higher Office?
That’s all I’m saying about Perry’s Huff Duff.
I never said the man doesn’t understand Race in New Orleans.

And this beef you have about the links to Zombie is absurd. What, that can only be done in Orleans Parish–but once one gets on the national stage (HuffPost) it’s off limits or some underhanded form of trickery? Huh?

[full disclosure: I've given $20 to the Perry campaign and let it use some pictures I took]