Dykstra, Lien, Herseth Sandlin Go 2.0 with Campaign Blogs

Perusing campaign websites tonight, I find that three of our four big statewide candidates—GOP Senate candidate Joel Dykstra and both contenders for South Dakota's lone House seat, the GOP's Chris Lien and Dem incumbent Stephanie Herseth Sandlin—have campaign blogs. Senator Tim Johnson has presences on MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr, but the Dem incumbent still has no blog (or does he?)

So how do the three campaign blogs compare? The good stuff will come in the fall, when we see how (and if) the candidates can put their blogs to good use in the heat of the campaign. For now, let's give a few friendly summer awards:

First-Mover Advantage: Chris Lien by a nose: his first blog post is March 25 (ah, that thrilling petition filing deadline!). Dykstra followed with his first post on March 31. The Herseth Sandlin crew didn't start blogging until June 9, after we got those darn distracting Presidential primary candidates out of the way.

First-Person Advantage: Joel Dykstra gets my stamp of approval for authenticity. It appears (and I hope I'm not wrong about this) that all but one of the Dykstra campaign blog posts are written by Dykstra himself. And he actually says stuff! He lays out energy policy, responds to Senator Johnson... heck, Dykstra sounds downright bloggy in his post on the health care reform proposals of McCain, Obama, and Clinton. I may not agree with Dykstra, but at least I can read what I disagree with straight from him.

Lien started his blog with first-person posts, but he rarely managed more than a sentence or two about the latest campaign stop. Then "Campaign Mike" took over in May, and since then his voice (and image, for Pete's sake) have been crowding out that of the guy we're actually supposed to vote for. Oops.

Herseth Sandlin gets lowest marks here: not one post from the candidate herself. And no issues, either: the three staffers posting so far have just written about themselves and various campaign activities. Perhaps it is meant to be more of an organizational blog, one to help volunteers get information. That's fine—blogs can be used for different purposes. But if you want to hear what the candidates themselves have to say, Dykstra is the only one really filling that need.

Quantity Over Quality: Alas, Dykstra is writing the least of the blogging campaigners. The most prolific campaign blog is Herseth Sandlin's, averaging 2.1 posts per week so far. Lien is close, posting 1.86 times a week. Dykstra is well behind at 0.85 posts per week. We can give Dykstra some credit: he's not getting paid to generate content like the staffers driving the other blogs. But almost everyone (except this guy!) says one key to successful blogging is regular blogging.

Vox Populi: Everybody wins here: all three campaign blogs allow comments. But Chris Lien gets bonus points here: His blog posts comments automatically, without moderation! I admire a candidate who's willing to take the Web 2.0 plunge and trust his commenters.

Tech Choice: Stephanie Herseth Sandlin gets big love from me here. While Dykstra and Lien pay for Typepad services, Herseth Sandlin's people go for the free Google Blogger account, the same software that powers the Madville Times! Chuckle at free software if you want, but it gets the job done. (I haven't tried Typepad, so I welcome the assessment of Douglas and other Typepad users.)

I hope all three blogs will continue to expand their content and give South Dakotans another venue to air their views and discuss issues with the candidates directly. I also hope we'll see the candidates who win lead the way in continuing their blogs in office as key channels for citizen participation in government.