Hey, Federal Election Commission! When it Comes to Bloggers and The 2006 Congressional Elections, Follow the Money. (If it Leads Nowhere, Don't Silence Free Speech!)

For the blog world, the 2006 campaign for Congress seems to have become fully engaged today. Today, the blogosphere seems realize that the Federal Election Commission could come down like a hammer on politically outspoken bloggers.

Free speech and the interchange of opinions and ideas -- the core of American democracy -- are at stake. Expression of ideas and opinions cannot and should not be chilled, especially for bloggers who happen to be opinionated but have no vendor relationship to a party, candidate, or campaign. The fine point is dtermining when a blogger is officially involved with a campaign.

The best alert came this afternoon from Teresa Valdez Klein at BlogBusinessSummit. The multi-author blog of the BlogBusinessSummit is now the repository of information and the source of continuing discussion stemming from last week's "Blog Business Summit" out West. Klein knows what she's talking about when it comes to blogging and elections: She's a former blogger for Howard Dean's run for the 2004 Democratic presidential. nomination, and she now is associated with TexturaDesign, one of the nation's foremost blog development shops.

Writes Klein (who acknowledges her source at ParadisePost):

What really bothers me about this is that it might put some of the conversational aspects that make blogs so powerful out of reach for political candidates who want to have conversations with voters in the blogosphere.

In an ideal world, a candidate could check the RSS reader, see something he disagreed with and leave a comment on someone’s blog -- following up later on with a post on his own blog about the issue and why he disagreed. That conversation would help the candidate to clarify his position on the issue to the public and possibly generate some goodwill with the blogger in question - even if the disagreement persisted. But it’s possible if the FEC decides to regulate blogs that this exchange could get the blogger and the candidate in hot water. These kinds of exchanges are essentially what makes business blogs powerful, so why muddy the waters for politics?

Like the Paradise Post said, the only situation in which a blogger should be considered part of a campaign is when he or she is paid to blog favorably about one candidate or unfavorably about another. Anything else is a violation of free speech.

Here! Here!

Note: Blog Herald carries the same news. Looking at the Herald, I'm reminded that no less a person than today's visitor to Indianapolis, President George W. Bush, recently advocated for increased use of new media including blogging.

I say, let's take the President for his word.

Comments

[Peggy Payne]

I didn't know about this threat, though I suppose it was inevitable that there'd be some attempt to curb what bloggers say, coming from one source or another.

I'm for radically free speech. The blog world has arisen not a moment too soon to counter the effect of too-big conglomerates, which result in too-few unhindered individual voices.

I read somewhere in the last couple of months that there are tiny signs of movement back toward "smallness." I hope that's true. I like Mom-and-Pop businesses and not-one-newspaper-but-two-or-three-or four.

[Teresa Valdez Klein]

Hi Douglass,
Wow! I'm truly sorry that I didn't find this post any sooner! Boy did my ego just inflate big time. I'm glad someone thinks I know what I'm talking about. :-)
Seriously though, thanks for your very kind words, your insightful commentary, and your inbound link. I'll be sure to follow your blog avidly from my RSS reader henceforth.

Cheers,
Teresa