Blogosphere bleeds into state political arena

Sometime in 2000 lawyer C.B. Forgotston started a Web site to track the votes of the Louisiana legislators. Not long after, Forgotston went to a meeting with former state Sen. Paulette Irons. Forgotston said Irons told him the senators were not happy about the posting of their voting records on the Internet. According to Forgotston, he did not care.

"I said, 'Well Paulette, if only 144 of you of the four million Louisiana citizens are mad, then I don't care,'" Forgotston said.

Since 2000 Forgotston, who is a University alumnus and has experience working for the legislature, has been posting on his Web site, www.forgotston.com, the voting records of Louisiana legislators and commentary on political proceedings in the state.

Forgotston is among a group of Louisianians who have taken their interest in Louisiana politics and public policy onto the Internet.

A blog, or Weblog, is a loose term that refers to an online journal with a personalized chronological log of thoughts. A political blog is a blog in which the entries primarily concern politics.

Political bloggers first came on the radar about six years ago, but it has only been in the past four years that bloggers have become an influential aspect of the political conversation.

During the weeks before the 2004 elections, several major media outlets including the New York Times, Newsweek and Time wrote features on the rising influence of bloggers, and many national bloggers received media credentials to cover the party conventions.

The growth of political blogs nationally has permeated state politics, and the nature of Louisiana politics makes it an easy place for bloggers to find topics and targets.

"In many other states, I think people don't worry about government because it works. Around here people see government as an impediment," Forgotston said.

The Pew Research Center, a think tank that does research on "information in the public interest," recently did a report on blogging. The report found that about 12 million American adults, or about 8 percent of adult Internet users, have blogged or currently have a blog. The report also found that about 57 million American adults, or about 39 percent of adult Internet users have read blogs or currently read blogs.

Kirby Goidel, a mass communication professor who specializes in public polling, said polling results for blog readership can be misleading or inaccurate.

"First of all people will say 'yes' when you ask them a question in a poll simply because they think they should say yes," Goidel said, Also, a lot of people don't know what a political blog is or recognize the term blog."

According to blogger Chad Rogers, who operates thedeadpelican.com, he gets 7,000 to 8,000 unique visitors per day. This may not seem like a lot, but according to Rogers it is about quality, not quantity. Rogers says his readership consists mainly of legislators, people in the media, people who work for the state and business people.

"My readers are people who need to know what's happening as it happens," Rogers said.

Many in the blogosphere agree that the readership should be looked at in terms of who is reading and not how many are reading.

"Political blog readership is likely to be really highly active and engaged. The readership isn't large, but they are engaged so they have the potential to have a much larger impact than the numbers suggest," Goidel said.

Forgotston said the influence of a blog's readership increases when the voter turnout is dismal like at the Sept. 30 state elections.

"Not many people read, but only 21 percent of the people voted so there is a good possibility that the vote was largely informed, the hits on my Web site went up exponentially in the last few days before Sept. 30," Forgotston said.

But Rogers said the fact that turnout was so low can show that blogs are not having much of an influence on voting.

"I was disappoined in recent elections, especially the last one," Rogers said. "We wanted to prove people wrong, but turnout was still dismal."

The influence on voting is only speculative as of now, but some in Louisiana point to the vetoed House Bill 1028 as an example of bloggers directly influencing state politics.

On June 19 the Louisiana House passed HB 1028 which allows state legislators who have served more than 10 years to be part of the state retirement system. If signed the bill would mean that taxpayers would pay for 75, percent of a legislator's retirement for the rest of their lives.

Nearly instantaneously the Louisiana blogosphere pounded on that bill. Forgotston said on his blog the bill would place a burden on the state employee's group health care plan and hurt state taxpayers.

The next day the bill became the primary topic of discussion on Moon Griffon's daily talk radio show focusing on Louisiana politics. Rogers posted, "The legislators who voted for this are, simply put, self-serving and not looking out for the interests of the people."

By June 22 both the Democratic Party of Louisiana and the Republican Party of Louisiana were urging Governor Kathleen Blanco to veto the bill.

On June 22 University instructor and doctoral student Emily Metzgar, who is also a Shreveport Times columnist, wrote on her blog www.emilymetzgar.com, "Step back and ponder this for a minute: The governor is being asked to a veto a bill that sailed through the legislature with broad, bipartisan support. It's funny in a sad sort of way."

After receiving hundreds of calls from Louisiana citizens, Governor Blanco vetoed the bill. After vetoeing the bill Blanco thanked citizens for calling her office and expressing their views.

"I have heard them loud and clear," she said.

Now four months later many around the state agree that it was the bloggers who caused Blanco to veto the bill.