Blogging Politicians

That’s a consequence of blogging. 

Their hope is Dana Schultz. In her mid-20s and a daughter of rural Athens back from a master’s degree in Milwaukee, Schultz is getting buzz as a shining hope against what Democrats see as a vulnerable Republican, Rep. Mary Williams of Medford. Schultz was touted, for instance, as “the shot in the leg the party needs” in Isthmus, the respectable Madison weekly.

It’s plausible. A high-school basketball star, Schultz grew up on a farm and is happy to return: “My heart was always on a gravel road,” she writes on her campaign website. She writes that she’s in favor of jobs, restraining the DNR and fiscal responsibility. It’s a program built for a swing district consisting of Park Falls, Ladysmith, Medford and their counties.

Williams, on her fourth term in the Assembly, has never won very big. “It’s a pretty swing district,” she said. “I’m used to it.”

But you’re left wondering: If this is the great D hope, what do the long shots look like? Because Schultz has issues.

For one thing, she seems unaware that what’s online lingers. Such as the blog she apparently wrote for a class in 2006, where she mused on rural areas’ politics. Just as she wrote it: “I know all about the huntin, fishin, snowmobilin, country music beltin, beer drinkin, working class, gossipin, people who attend christian church every sunday and are racist, sexist, and homophobic, but more just ignorant because of lack of exposure.” She wrote that she understands rural brain drain: “Why would people go back to face fatter and less educated Ann Colture’s?”

Elsewhere, she posts about how “it doesn’t make sense for lower incomers to be pro-life” and how unsympathetic rubes are toward gay people. It reads like typical youthful maundering, though in Schultz’s case, youthful was only four years ago.

Is this a big story?  I dunno.  Schultz’s words are certainly unflattering for her, but as more and more people blog and tweet and facebook, it forces a different conversation.  I have written over 13,000 posts on this blog, hundreds of columns, and thousands of other missives.  I’m sure they are all sitting in some guy’s desk somewhere to be used against me should I ever run for office.  Many of those comments still represent my current beliefs.  Some do not.  Some were written in anger or frustration (never a good idea, but it happens).  At the end of the day, I’m human.  I just also happen to share a fair amount of myself with a wider audience through the internet. 

Schultz is in the same boat.  At least we know her mind in an unscripted format.  We can deal with that and discuss it.  Is that better than yet another politician that we only know through press releases that have been vetted through a campaign staff?  Do people who share their lives through the internet become automatically discredited for public office, or does it force us to evaluate them as real people with all of the faults and blemishes that real people have?

I wouldn’t vote for Schultz, but at least I know why.