Why I refused to blog for Edwards

Before Amanda Marcotte's short-lived tenure as blogger for the John Edwards campaign, I was offered the job. Here's why I said no.

By Lindsay Beyerstein

Read more: Hillary Rodham Clinton, Opinion, John Edwards, Jim Webb

Feb. 26, 2007 | I am an atheist, but when Bill Donohue called the John Edwards bloggers "anti-Catholic, vulgar, trash-talking bigots," my first thought was, "There but for the grace of God go I."

I was offered a job blogging for John Edwards, but I declined.

On Jan. 12, an Edwards campaign staffer whom I'll call Bob, which isn't his real name, e-mailed me to ask if I might be interested in blogging for the campaign. I maintain a blog called Majikthise, and I'd met Bob several times at various political and social gatherings in New York City, including Drinking Liberally.

Back in October, Bob had invited me to join a few local bloggers at an off-the-record meeting with Elizabeth Edwards at the Loews Regency Hotel. Unfortunately, I couldn't go.

Mrs. Edwards is a celebrity in the netroots because she maintains an active presence in the community. Months later, bloggers who attended that meeting are still talking about it in glowing terms. Mrs. Edwards has been writing her own diaries on DailyKos for years.

As a fellow blogger put it, "Elizabeth Edwards is everywhere."

Bob and I arranged to have an exploratory conversation on Sunday, Jan. 14, after the Martin Luther King Day commemoration service at Riverside Church in Harlem, where John Edwards was scheduled to speak. It was a mutually convenient time because Bob was there with the campaign and I was blogging (and photographing) the event.

After the three-hour ceremony, Bob worked his way through the throng of parishioners and choir members to greet me as I packed up my camera gear. He's a slight, soft-spoken guy in his 20s with short, dark hair and bright green eyes.

"You guys put on a great show!" I said. It was true. Everyone from Chuck Schumer to Bill Moyers had showed up to watch John Edwards denounce Bush's Iraq escalation in Hillary Clinton's backyard.

It was already dark and drizzling when Bob and I left the church. Bob was telling me how John Edwards was going to be a different kind of candidate. We, a new generation of Internet-savvy activists, had finally come of age. We were going to help Edwards run a campaign that was totally outside the Beltway.

I nodded. The glow of the ceremony was still with me. Anything seemed possible.

As we walked, Bob downloaded his vision: The whole Edwards campaign was going to be a decentralized grass-roots operation.

"Elizabeth Edwards gets it," he said with unabashed admiration.

We settled into the back of a small, brightly lit shawarma joint and ordered baklava. After this heartfelt pitch, Bob asked me if I was interested in blogging for the Edwards campaign.

I was dazzled by Edwards' speech, Bob's vision and the sense that I might be on the verge of the big time. I wanted to jump on the bus, but I knew I couldn't.

"I'm probably not ... the person you want," I said, finally. "I mean, I'm on the record saying that abortion is good and that all drugs should be legalized, including heroin. Don't you think that might be a little embarrassing for the campaign?"

Bob assured me that my controversial posts weren't a problem as far as the campaign was concerned. They were familiar with my work. And Bob did seem to know my writing. I didn't get the impression he was a daily reader, but it was obvious he had been reading the blog for a while.

"That's you, that's not John Edwards," he said.

Bob was confident that people would understand the difference. I wasn't so sure.

"So, it's not a problem that I'm an outspoken atheist?" I asked.

Every blogger says controversial things from time to time, Bob assured me. He admitted that he'd drawn some fire for a tasteless joke on his own site a while back. It hadn't been a big deal.

I asked if I would have to quit blogging at Majikthise in order to take the job with Edwards. My blog means more to me than any job I've ever had. After three years of hard work, I finally have a platform from which to express ideas that won't get a hearing in the established media, let alone in mainstream Democratic politics. So the prospect of giving up my untrammeled freedom to blog press releases for John Edwards gave me pause. Still, I assumed Bob would say it was a necessity.

I was wrong. Bob promised that I wouldn't have to give up my personal blog. He added that I probably wouldn't have much time left for personal blogging, since everyone was working 18-hour days on the campaign. But, he noted, he hadn't given up his own blog, and neither had another member of the Edwards Internet team.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. A bunch of Internet staffers with private blogs sounded like a disaster waiting to happen.

Next page: "The thing you have to realize about Amanda is that she's got real enemies"