More on Marcotte

One possible defense for John Edwards’ appointment of Amanda Marcotte as his campaign’s chief blogger might be ignorance—i.e., this was a low-level appointment in the campaign, one in which the candidate probably had no role and which would have received little notice absent her indefensible comments about the lacrosse case.

Alas, that defense isn’t open to him. The Marcotte appointment generated widespread, enthusiastic praise among the left-leaning blogosphere before word of her lacrosse statements came to light.

My DD:

This is an interesting angle of hires from the netroots for Edwards. Shakespeare’s Sister and Pandagon are blogs that I think would be characterized as ‘ideologically-centered’ as opposed to being ‘big-tent’ democratic blogs.

This is actually the first move by the Edwards campaign in the netroots that I find ground-breaking . . . But most of all, it’s a move on the issues to the liberal side of the spectrum.

What this move symbolizes in the blogosphere is that Edwards team understands how to move to the left on the issues. The early move by Edwards to consolidate the liberal wing of the Democratic party at the beginning is very smart. It’s how McGovern won the 1972 Democratic primary (I’ve been reading Gary Hart’s “Right from the Start”) . . . For Edwards, that show of “organizational strength” means wins in both Iowa and Nevada.

SLOG: (the blog of Seattle’s alternative weekly, in a post entitled, “Yay, Amanda!”)

One of my favorite bloggers, Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, has signed on to blog for John Edwards’s campaign—exciting news for Amanda, great news for Edwards. Amanda explains her decision to go to work for Edwards here, noting that her political obsessions— including “women’s rights, ending the war in Iraq, environmentalism, and restoring the American dream where climbing out of poverty and having a middle class lifestyle is an option available to everyone”—are right in line with her candidate’s.

Pandagon: (from Marcotte’s blog partner)

You can’t say that they aren’t a savvy crew over there at Team Edwards, because they are scooping up the big guns on the almost-A list (they are both A in my book, but we know what I mean when it comes to the big boyz). The folks here and at Shakes Sis are large, politically engaged and active readers — and will give the Edwards camp a fair hearing. I’m sure that these developments are due to Elizabeth Edwards, who is well-versed and ever-present in the blogosphere. [emphasis added]

It will be interesting to see what kind of pressure this puts on the other candidates to recruit well-known voices from the netroots, and what editorial effect that will have on blogs generally, since both will continue blogging at their primary pads in addition to their work for JRE. This is certainly generating more buzz on the blogs than developments at Hillaryland. Hoo-hah.

The Impolitic:

There’s something happening here. All kinds of movement in Blogtopia this week. Hot of the heels of Amanda Marcotte’s announcement, now Shakespeare’s Sister tells us she has also joined the Edwards campaign as Netroots Coordinator. I’m not entirely sold on Edwards as a candiate myself but I’m huge fan of Shakes and he’s clearly demonstrated his commitment to connecting with the netroots with these two hires. Congrats to Melissa and good on Edwards for such great picks to run his internet outreach.

Liberal Values:

John Edwards has been really concentrating on getting improving his strength in the blogosphere. Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon is taking over as blogmaster . . . [Edwards] certainly is going all out in utilizing every new bell and whistle which has been added to blogs since the Dean campaign.

So, the Marcotte move was one that generated a lot of high praise for Edwards among a key constituency. Now, Overlawyered has the story of Marcotte deleting many of her most outrageous comments. Is this the message that Edwards is intending to send? Some might call it a cover-up.