Friday, August 11, 2006

Bloggers and Politics

"You know, we‘re going to get attacked because fact is [they] don't like the rights of people-powered politics. They don‘t like regular [people] taking charge of their own politics, getting involved. They can't control it, the message is out of control, who votes is out of control.

And this is not something that they care for. They want to squash it before it gets too big. They can't do it, because there are no leaders to squash. It's a broad-based movement. There are [thousands] of people involved. And they‘re going to either have to deal with it, learn to live with it, or they're going to suffer very miserable lives as a result."
Does this sound familiar, Singapore? Any guesses what this person is speaking of?

Words in brackets were changed to hide the passage’s origin. Click on Read more to see the original version.

Here is the original statement:

"You know, we're going to get attacked because fact is that people inside Washington, D.C., don‘t like the rights of people-powered politics. They don't like regular Americans taking charge of their own politics, getting involved. They can't control it, the message is out of control, who votes is out of control.

And this is not something that they care for. They want to squash it before it gets too big. They can't do it, because there are no leaders to squash. It‘s a broad-based movement. There are millions of people involved. And they're going to either have to deal with it, learn to live with it, or they‘re going to suffer very miserable lives as a result."
No, this isn’t about Singapore although the similarities are striking. The speaker is the American political blogger Markos Moulitsas, commenting on the unexpected defeat of 18-year U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman by newcomer Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary of Connecticut. Moulitsas’s popular blog Daily Kos strongly backed Lamont. As a result of this campaign some believe that the Democrats must now listen to the voices in the blogosphere. See here for more analysis.

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3 Comments:

Blogger Bernard Leong said...

Hi Singapore Economist,

Yeah, this is an interesting event for the blogosphere. However, I still caution that the generals are different from the primaries. In the US system, the primaries are conducted by the voters of the party. One thing is to note that most democrats are in the blogosphere. To be able to reach out to a bigger group (where moderates and republicans), it is still a long way out there. If Ned Lamont wins the general, then I will say that blogosphere holds a real effect to political elections.

Of course, this is going to be something which the ruling party in Singapore to be very concerned. However, we have yet got a Markos Moulitsas, and this will be difficult in establishing credibility.

Best regards,
BL

11:25 AM  
Blogger a singapore economist said...

bl,

I agree that it is too early to draw any conclusions. BTW, Connecticut voted overwhelmingly Democrat in the 2004 presidential election (54% to 44%, according to Wiki).

I think you are spot on about not having a Daily Kos in Singapore. Maybe in time...

12:42 PM  
Blogger Bernard Leong said...

Hi Singapore Economist,

I have written a reprise to your piece.

Take a look and let me know your thoughts.

yours sincerely,
BL

2:09 PM  

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