Accept no substitutes

My Five Sons — In WashPost on the Bros Romney

Whilst I was in a meeting about the Earl Scruggs Center today, I got an email and a call from Jose Antonio Vargas of the Washington Post. Fred was too busy to have an opinion on the blog that may be written by the five sons of Mitt Romney. I have been reading a few of the blogs hosted or sponsored by the various presidential candidates. The Democrats have the lead in the blog/net space as far as I can tell, but I hadn’t seen the Blog of the Brothers Romney til today.

Okay, it’s a blog by nice people. They take nice pictures. They say nice things — unless you are Hillary Clinton. They won’t embarrass anyone. You feel good about them. You probably won’t read the blog very often.

Wait! There is drama afterall! Ben, the different one, the blonde one, the bearded one, the one in med school. He feels different. He has an article about his beard. He has an article about his dog. His dog is nice. He might shave his beard. He did shave his beard. His wife wishes he didn’t. His beard is still shaved.

The Brothers Romney miss the message from Tolstoy: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Or do they? They aren’t about drama but about the lack of it. Small harmless sagas may appear, the beard, but like My Three Sons + Two, they won’t take our minds off FaceBook. The blog is a sort of family featured version of “Morning in America” idealized and safe.

But is it effective? Does it energize the Romney base or make converts? Probably not. Unlike TV, the web is interactive, utile and social. There is no reason to go to boring places that don’t have much interaction or utility.

But the blog could be improved and become interesting, maybe starting with something like this.

2 Comments

  1. OnBeingParents

    The web continues to change the way politics is played.
    I can’t wait for the day when elections are done over the Internet.
    Today,Youtube, blogs, and social networks are politicians’ weapons of choice.

    If Dr. Howard Dean can raise almost a million dollar online then anything is possible.

  2. Paul

    The story came out on Saturday’s Washington Post. It’s pretty soft on the Romneys, who as OnBeing hints are not playing politics in a very different way. Unlike the more risk-taking Edwards campaign (note several of my friends are involved in the Edwards campaign, no one I know is involved in the Romney campaign).

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