The More Speech, The Better
by Adam B
Sun Mar 25, 2007 at 11:01:25 AM PDT
It's good to know that no matter what else may have happened there under new management, RedState.com founder Mike Krempasky has remained on the side of the righteous when it comes to our mutual support of the First Amendment.
As we approach Tuesday's one-year anniversary of the FEC siding with bloggers over the so-called "reform" lobby, Krempasky's interview today on CNN's Reliable Sources with Howie Kurtz sounds exactly like what those on our side of the aisle might note of the Hillary/"1984" ad and whether anonymity is a problem:
KURTZ: What surprised me, Mike Krempasky, when I called the Obama campaign is they were absolutely adamant in saying they didn't know about this, and I have no reason to doubt that that's not true. But they certainly didn't distance themselves from the ad. They kind of had it both ways.
MIKE KREMPASKY, REDSTATE.COM: Well, they did. And you would almost expect them to have to do that.
But I don't necessarily think this is really a bad thing. I mean, look, if it's getting people to, you know, have conversations about politics that weren't having them before, fantastic. And I think the irony there is that it sort of pokes a lot of fun at Hillary's conversation and listening tour, but in fact, you know, two million people saw it, and how many more people talked about it, whether it's reading columns like yours or just having discussions with each other about politics?
KURTZ: And the anonymity doesn't bother you at all? What about an ad that made false charges and we didn't know who put it up?
KREMPASKY: Well, A, I think that anything in this new area of politics that is substantive, does that make specific factual claims, is going to come out a lot quicker than this one did. There's just going to be more of a need for people to know. And in this case, look, the system did work.
Someone put up an anonymous video. It got a lot of attention. And all of the sudden, now we know who it was.
Indeed. De Vellis got caught because it's pretty much impossible not to want to take credit for a work so widely viewed, and once you tell that one person, as Ben Franklin said, "Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead." As for what it all means, in re YouTube:
KURTZ: ...In a larger sense, Mike Krempasky, have media organizations and the campaigns themselves just lost control of the dialogue to the YouTube culture? This is a powerful thing to be able to make an ad and two million people see it.
KREMPASKY: It's true. And I think Jeff pointed this out earlier in the week.
Two million is a big number, but it's not a big number when we're talking about the kind of audience the campaigns are broadcasting through to, you know, just standard television buys (ph). They have lost a measure of control, but that's actually pretty good.
You know, on one hand, we can't complain that we spend a billion dollars on political ads and then do things that sort of discourage people from making amateur cost-free ads and generating conversation. I think they're both OK and they're both good, and the more speech the better. ...
KURTZ: ... Is this kind of whole thing, the dialogue, the ads, going to diminish the power of television advertising on -- that the campaigns spend zillions on? Because, you know, not everybody is on YouTube.
KREMPASKY: One can only hope. I mean, really...
KURTZ: You think that would be a great thing?
KREMPASKY: I think it would be a fantastic thing.
KURTZ: Why?
KREMPASKY: I think that, you know, anything that gets more people involved at the grassroots level is a positive thing for politics, and, you know, if anything has changed, whether it's blogs, social media, you know, Web video online, to make it less of the purview of the power of a few, then I think that's great for politics.
People-powered politics. Has a nice ring to it.
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