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So, John Edwards-- hero of the working class, good-looking charmer, boyish, non-threatening, velvety Southern presidential aspirant-- hired Amanda Marcotte of the mean-spirited, foul-mouthed, bile-spitting blog, Pandagon as his blog master.
Interesting choice, John. The trick for Democrats is they have to appease the Nutroots by picking someone like Amanda to join the team, but do so without alienating all the normal Americans whose votes they'd like to get. This is much harder to do for Dem candidates than Republican candidates because the left side of the blogosphere just has fewer big bloggers who can finish a post without breaking out the f-bomb or calling for violent acts to be performed on the President of the United States.
Marcotte's one of the worst in this regard. This isn't the kind of blogger that's gonna alienate just uptight Christian North Carolinians with her politics. This is someone who has the potential to alienate pretty much the entire state of North Carolina with her personality (well, except Chapel Hill, which is where she'll be living, safely sheltered from real, reasonable voters). Sounds like a great start to a campaign to me.
The must-watch of the day is Michelle Malkin's dramatic interpretation of Amanda's style of political analysis. If I typed things like "lol," which I don't, but if I did, now would be the time. Hilarious. Seriously, watch it.
My dad noticed Amanda making her first ethical faux pas as official Edwards blogmaster by airbrushing and deleting old, profanity-laced posts when righty bloggers started bringing attention to them.
Go read the new, reformed Amanda Marcotte at John Edwards' site. You'll hardly recognize her after her mainstream makeover.
Bad move, John. You are the Thelma to her foul-mouthed, feminist Louise, and she's gonna drive both of y'all off a cliff.
More analysis from Amanda, here. Classy stuff.
Update: Danny Glover has a run-down of all of Marcotte's airbrushing and deleting in the face of controversy. She should have just left the stuff. The content's bad, but the cover-up's worse. I like this argument from the Marcotte defenders:
"You're opposing Edwards' candidacy by criticizing his blog manager, for her opinions posted on a different blog, about a state-level criminal case?" one commenter wrote at Overlawyered. "'Foul language' -- that's what you base your decisions on in the most important political race in the democractic world? And that's what it took to distract you from an issue in any way related to the actual candidate: 'comic joshing' about the house he lives in?" Welcome to politics. The people Edwards associates with are a reflection on his own suitability for office, and voters see it that way, whether liberal bloggers like it or not. The problem, of course, is that liberal bloggers have to try very hard to be a good, appropriate reflection on a candidate, and the makeover doesn't always redeem their past rhetoric. But them's the breaks. The "actual candidate" made a mistake, and he'll be judged for it.
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