TNR on Dean, blogs, and the power of the 'net.

In The New Republic Online article Dean.com, there's some interesting stuff about how the Dean campaign is using the internet to ratchet up interest and enthusiasm.

So what's my problem with this piece? This quote:

One of the most important online vehicles for the Dean campaign is blogs. Just as President Bush has wooed conservative talk-show hosts, holding a special day for them at the White House, Dean is the first candidate to treat relatively unknown bloggers as a critical opinion-making constituency. "We understand the blogging community and have been active in it," says Trippi. "A lot more people are seeing us on the blogs and other sites every day than on TV at this point in the campaign."

Yep, folks, once again, we're less than chopped liver. We've been covering politics since 1999, but we're not even worth an email. Sigh. I guess they've seen our stats and know that we don't even count as "relatively unknown."

Spike on Angel?

Okay, it's been widely reported that James Marsters will be on Angel next season, but it's unclear just how Spike survived the season finale of Buffy.

But... what hasn't been said explicitly is that Marsters as Spike is joining Angel. Or have I missed something? My guess: give him his natural hair color, his natural accent, a few pounds, and a tan, and you instead have a whole new character. I'll still watch Angel, but I haven't seen anything definitive that says that we'll see Spike (vs. Marsters) next year.

If you've seen anything different, or have more info, let me know in the comments.

Buffy auction

Buffy is over, but it's still possible to get your own little piece of the show. The bad news: no pix of the items being sold + really high prices.

Later note: there are pix; they just take forever to load so have patience.

MoveOn.org now working with spammers

I used to like what they're doing, but MoveOn.org is now selling/giving your email address to other organizations, in complete disregard of their privacy policy. Grrr.

Lucy & Richard & Al

Al saw Lucy Kaplansky and Richard Shindell in concert. We are officially jealous.

Dean video

We put "Howard Dean" into the ReplayTV as a keyword for future recordings, and last night it grabbed an hour of Dean as part of C-SPAN's Road to the White House series. It was a freeform Q&A format, and I was impressed. Dean showed himself as a smart, pragmatic guy who did remarkably little pandering to the audience (personally, I think that's a good thing). Several times, he disagreed with a questioner, rather than suck up. We liked his policy stands, and we liked the way that he's willing to go after Bush. Dori probably said it best: "This guy's talked for an hour, and he hasn't pissed me off yet." The site doesn't seem to have permalinks, so use the link to get to the Road to the White House archives page, then look for the 5/18 event. Recommended if you're shopping the Democratic candidates.