It seems to me that were YHB in the US House of Representatives, I would have somebody on staff (or a reliable volunteer, I suppose) who would be responsible for scanning the top ten blogs of Left Blogovia, the top ten blogs of Right Blogovia, and the top ten non-political blogs, looking for mentions of myself, major cities in my district, any committee on which I sit and the chairs thereof, the half-a-dozen pieces of legislation I cared about most, and whatever journalists or broadcast personalities I was scheduled to meet with that week.
In addition, that person would submit a daily précis with any major new obsessions of the blogosphere, from phony Reuters pictures to lonelygirl13. That list and précis would go to both my publicity person and my issues person, who would, in addition to preparing weekly précis for me from the daily ones, use their judgment to pass along to me anything that either was now-or-never or that I could usefully get out in front of. Mostly, though, I would make it clear that I was spending this money to make sure that I would not ever be blindsided.
I would think the blogreader would need about two hours a day, spread out in five-minute-chunks, and a good aggregator. Oh, that person would also need to periodically google for my name and various other relevant things, to make sure that we weren’t missing anything. I figure this could be the same person who has the job of reading all the major newspapers in my district, although I would want that person to be looking at actual paper newspapers rather than just the on-line versions. I don’t think I’d want that person to be the paid blogger, who would either be my publicity person or work for my publicity person, in the DC office. My feeling is that I’d rather that the person be in the district, working from home (or from a coffeehouse somewhere). It’s a part-time job, or an internship, or perhaps a volunteer position.
My question is: of the 435 Reps, how many do you think have such people? And, I suppose, how many are hiring?
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.