Patrick Ruffini, talented polibiz guru, has entered the fray following remarks from Soren Dayton (Eyeon08) about my post on Fred Thompson trying his best to imitate Max Headroom.

That's a bit confusing... Let's try this recap:

• I questioned the viability of a Thompson candidacy tethered to an Internet-only campaign (or at least a predominately Internet-only campaign). I used the blogosphere as an example where outreach seems impactful but the numbers just don't add up to much. (I.E. if you rely just on the blogosphere you'll be swimming with Tom Tancredo)
  
  
• Soren counters this argument indicating that Thompson could yet wax Romney-esque, produce a gambit of "content", and/or drive a voter-to-voter approach.
  
  
• Patrick takes me to task for my reckoning of activist influences pointing to a larger outreach group if you include non-blog sites such as FreeRepublic and Townhall.com.

Both Soren and Patrick make some excellent points but I stand by my two main points: 1) that Thompson will need to press more flesh than he will Qwerty keys and 2) that the blogosphere has some influence but it ain't all that and a box of chocolates - yet - (I think that's the phrase my 9 year old used the other day ?)

I did allude to one thing: Fred might be one election too early on this. I can imagine virtual campaigns becoming the norm circa 2012 when the learning curve on all things Internet is brought to an acceptable levels.

Patrick updates his post with a cool clip of Mitt slapping down a question raised by a person citing something on the blogosphere. So yes, the blogosphere has some decent dynamic influence that, ripple-like, can make a splash; but notice Mitt's effectiveness is that he is in person, in front of a large crowd, speaking extemporaneously about a sensitive subject in an articulate and dynamic way. Then again, I was watching it on YouTube on a blog... so go figure.

Here's a chart that I produced for one of my clients that shows the various mediums of reaching and affecting an audience, along with the cost and ease of getting your message out over a particular channel. Click to enlarge


KEY
+ means positive
- means negative or difficult
+ / - means somewhere in the middle

Blogs have yet to reach their full potential of reach and effectiveness, but it doesn't cost much and it's pretty easy to do. Thoughts?

Labels: fred thompson, Internet