Gee, I wonder if Hillary is playing the same game as McCain -- sock puppets

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/02/23/political_bloggers_fear_publicists_will_infiltrate_sites/?page=full



Political bloggers fear publicists will infiltrate sites
By Alan Wirzbicki, Globe Correspondent | February 23, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Erick Erickson has been running the popular blog Redstate.com long enough to know what his readers' postings sound like: red-meat conservative rhetoric served up with a little dash of populist anger.

So when postings from an unknown writer on the site showed up praising Senator John McCain -- one of the site's least-popular Republicans for his deviations from hard-core conservative orthodoxy -- Erickson thought he smelled a rat.

Or maybe a sock puppet, shill, or a troll -- Web slang for bloggers who pretend to be grass-roots political commentators but instead are paid public relations agents.

The author of the pro-McCain articles on Redstate.com, Erickson determined after a Google search, was a Michigan political operative whose firm worked for McCain's political action committee.

I remember when we were thought by some to be paid Kerry operatives. In a way it was a compliment. It did reflect that we had made the effort and taken the time to learn enough about the Senator's record that we could competently defend him. That, and they saw that we were very committed to him.

I suspect that over time we will see more and more people, who are genuinely excited and committed to 2008 candidates. (2004 may be unusual in that Kerry, Dean and Clark all were not your usual politicians and Bush was an unusual villian.)

I also think that all the candidates will try to have closer ties to online people - at least to the point of tring to insure that statements and speeches etc are easy to find online. Kerry's team was doing a great job at that - and I think that his web site has more depth and information than any of the 2008 candidates - possibly because he has more depth. This will mean that people supporting other candidates will do as we have done. When they find an interesting document on their candidate's web site or Senate site - they will post it.

As to the annoying ones - I think they range from people jealous that we really do have someone we can believe in and who want to shatter that, people who never wanted Kerry to win and who had that belief validated by both the far left or the DLC wing, to people who may not even be Democrats.

popping up every day all over these forums?

They attacked him every time he made a significant move to applaud.