Fresh from his defeat in the Connecticut primary and an unfortunate server crash on the night before, Joe Lieberman and his staff have belatedly entered the blogosphere.  In his first post, senior Leiberman advisor Dan Gerstein was frank about their late entry into the blogging fray.  "The fact is, for the last several months we ceded the online debate to our rivals," Gerstein said.

Better late than never.  But as many campaigns are discovering, the world can be an ugly place when you open up your site and let anyone comment, and the Lieberman campaign's blog is already full of discussion, savory and otherwise.  Maybe that's why Senator Rick Santorum, who according to the Bivings Report runs the most trafficked candidate blog, makes first-time users fill out their names and addresses (and, optionally, a bevy of other information as well) before posting.  Perhaps because of this I've also failed to find any comments on his site. 

Other candidates have been more welcoming to their visitors.  Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat running for Senate in Rhode Island, keeps his blog on the front page of his site, and there have been a few comments -- all civil -- here and there.  Jack Carter, a Democrat running for Senate in Nevada, is also allowing comments and has received several thoughtful and respectful comments on some posts.  And Pete Ashdown, a Democrat running for Senate in Utah, not only receives over ten comments for some posts, but is also getting trackbacks from other blogs -- he's being read and linked.   He has also developed a wiki that asks participants to "work on policy, strategize in an open forum, or simply see what needs to be done."  It's encouraging to see him embrace the kind of openness and transparency provided by wikis, we'll keep our eye on his campaign.

So how is Joe's new blog faring?  For one thing, he's receiving a little less respect and lot more comments.  Exactly two hours after a recent post was published it received a whopping 122 comments.  Most of them are the kind of flaming and banter found on sites like DailyKos, myDD, or Democratic Underground.  Posters tended to insult or praise each other, insult or praise Lieberman, insult or praise Ned Lamont, and... sometimes discuss the issues.  Is this the kind of response an open campaign is destined to receive or are things particularly vitriolic in Connecticut?  

Joe should be praised for his willingness, even at this late date, to invite the public to participate on his site.  But Ned Lamont has kept his own blog since early May, and he has also allowed the public to comment.  While commenters on Lamont's blog can sometimes get snarky, the tone is decidedly more civil than at Joe's.  And -- this is significant -- Lamont's blog looks like a blog.  It has four kinds of RSS feeds, archives, and a linkroll.  Lieberman has a linkroll, but no archives (to be fair, there have only been five posts so far) and no feeds.  The omission of the feeds is a glaring error; thousands of people (including myself) read blogs by subscribing to syndicated feeds; this feature is a must for all bloggers. While Lieberman has taken an important, if tardy, first step, he has a lot of catching up to do.   

For more on how candidates nationwide are faring on the blog front, check out some excellent posts by the Bivings Report here, here, and here.

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