Ben Tribbet, author of the Not Larry Sabato blog*, has announced that:
[F]ormer Governor Mark Warner[‘s] Senate campaign is sponsoring NLS and RK for 2008. A link to his website is in the upper right hand corner of the site- and we will be bringing you special content from the Warner campaign throughout the year!
[ . . . ]
Sponsorships are available only to candidates I am strongly supporting, and it means a strategic partnership between this blog and their campaign.
Is this really something candidates want to do? When I hear “strategic partnership”, it brings message coordination and blessing to mind. Now, that may be exactly what the blog wants, but I can imagine a campaign really regretting that the first time a blog says something stupid or otherwise reaches further than the campaign might, itself.
I’m near certain that there will come a time where the campaign will want to distance itself from something said at RK or NLS. And it’s going to be a whole lot harder when it’s “strategic partnership” describing the relationship, and not “political advertising on a blog.”
*And originator of the clever-the-first-time-but-now-thoroughly-played-out-Not-Some-Name-meme