Blog the Vote: Should We Digg The Next President?

Love him or hate him, Al Gore, The Man Who Would Be President, is probably doing more good for the world in his current role as environmental awareness raiser than he might have done as President. Even though Americans hold global warming as low priority, there are those who hold Al Gore as a visionary. That’s not likely something he would have been called as a President, even if he’d done pretty much the same thing.

So in terms of achieving something, he’s probably better off as he is. Sure, there are still politics and he has naysayers. As Prez doing the same things, he would have had to defend himself against his critics else be viewed as weak – whether he’s correct or not in his stance. As environmental watchdog, he could choose to ignore critics and merely let the facts speak for themselves.

In the current role, his agenda takes on a wholly different, non-political bent – provided he isn’t planning on throwing his hat in the Democratic candidate ring after all (now or in the future). On the other hand, would you be more likely to vote for a person who has already proven themselves on the world stage?

I’m inclined to do that, regardless of political affiliation. I’m also inclined to read a blog by Al Gore, were he to do that, or have someone ghostblog for him – with his express sign-off. On the other hand, I’m not necessarily sure I’d read blogs by presidential candidates John Edwards, Rudy Guiliani, Hilary Clinton, etc. I’m not sure. Then again, Senator Edwards can’t seem to decide whether keep or fire his blogger. Or did she quit?

And then there’s Senator Barack Obama, whom Muhammad Saleem declared on our pages as the Websident so far, what with having over 4,000 members create blogs on his social network. Yes, social network: myBarackObama. As well, there’s the 3,000 bloggers who have also created campaign pages.

Can you imagine how buzz and much content 7,000+ eager supporters -cum -bloggers can create for you? Do any of the other candidates have that much backing? I doubt any SEO company could build such positive, valuable content. (Assuming it’s all done with some coherence.)

I’m laying my money down that the Candidate Most Likely To Be Dugg is Senator Barack Obama because of how much his campaign crew “gets” new media. Of course we can’t vote for the next President using Digg, given that the bulk of the Digg community seems to be 25, tech-savvy, and liberal. Obviously, that doesn’t represent the entire American populace equally. But imagine if we could.

Originally posted on February 21, 2007 @ 7:05 pm