25 January 2008

Baseball, Apple Pie, and Mom101

I've said before (as have others) that the campaigns are making a mistake by focusing solely on the top-tier political blogs for money and small-potatoes political blogs for volumes of "my candidate rocks, your candidate stinks" fodder.

It started when the campaigns blew off BlogHer '07 in Chicago but fell over themselves sucking up to political types at Yearly Kos in the same city just a week later. Moms were pissed.

This week, Liz Gumbinner of Mom101 fame did what most moms do when they're going to make a decision - she paid attention to details and weighed her options. She looked through the websites of each of the candidates very thoroughly, looking for what they had to say about the issues she cares about most. And she shared her observations on her very popular blog.

And a lot of candidates are wearing egg on their faces right now.

You may not agree with her politics, but you can be sure of this: Moms (and women generally) are critical to Campaign '08. Opinion-leading moms write online and read mom-authored blogs. The campaigns need to be where the voters are. That's why we track political moms at Virtual Vantage Points.

I've said it before: Ignore the moms at your own peril.

3 comments:

Mom101 said...

Thanks David - I have to be honest, I might not have spent 2 days and 1 night on each of the candidates blogs tracking down their stances on FMLA and childcare if it weren't for the assignment I had. But man, was I glad I did. Eye-opening. I really hope that people can start rethinking that family values label and not ascribing it to GOP candidates automatically. There's more to values than whether you're for roe v wade.

Anonymous said...

Yes, thanks, David. I would not have seen Mom101's post otherwise.

Julie Marsh said...

Hear hear, Liz. Funny how so-called family values are linked to what somebody else thinks a family ought to be (and bases that paradigm on a compilation of short stories).

Sarcasm aside, I've been writing up candidate profiles at The Parental is Political, but they've been mere summaries of statements/voting records on a variety of issues.

What I plan to do next - on my own site - is to look at where each of the candidates stand on those same issues, and rack them and stack them against my own priorities. I'm hoping it will give me a clearer picture of my best voting options.

Because right now I hate everybody.