Hooray For Candidates Who Rely on the Blogosphere

The Cleveland Plain Dealer chastises Rep. Sherrod Brown's (D-OH) staff for cribbing information from Nathan Newman's site when writing a letter to Sen. Mike DeWine about Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. The paper breathlessly says it is plagiarism, even though, as Newman himself notes, there is an explicit note at the bottom of the page that explicitly says folks are allowed to use the information there "for any purpose without explicit permission."

Here's the thing with this story - blogs are written to pick out information not being covered by the mainstream media. I've had my blog cribbed before by politicians, candidates, etc. As Atrios notes, that's exactly the POINT - to get the information out there. And even if you think Brown's staffer made a "mistake," it is quite a minor one. The truth is, as Nathan himself notes, it is a travesty that the media would cover how Sherrod Brown wrote his letter, rather than Sen. Mike DeWine's (R-OH) refusal to answer any of the substantive questions in it.

In fact, I would say this story has a very important point underneath it: Sherrod Brown, a major candidate for U.S. Senate, does not simply regurgitate Washington, D.C. conventional wisdom. As anyone who reads Nathan Newman knows, Nathan is one of the most astute analysts of politics when it comes to how issues affect working people. The fact that Sherrod Brown relies on that kind of analysis - and not some political consultant or Beltway blowhard - is a tribute to the blogosphere's power as an information source and to politicians who are trying to break free of the corporate-driven political debate.

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