A powerful incentive to fix the comments feature on this blog

Longtime readers are likely aware that I’ve been relatively slow to fix the comments feature on the blog. Partly this was due to being distracted by the day job, partly because I enjoy the peace and quiet that comes with an end to comment spam. It appears that John McCain has provided me with an ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

Longtime readers are likely aware that I've been relatively slow to fix the comments feature on the blog. Partly this was due to being distracted by the day job, partly because I enjoy the peace and quiet that comes with an end to comment spam. It appears that John McCain has provided me with an incentive to fix the comments. According to Politico's Jonathan Martin: John McCain's campaign is using their campaign website to encourage supporters to post supportive comments on political blogs, including the most well-known liberal site in the blogosphere. And to make things easier, they're including talking points with which sympathizers can use to get out the McCain message. "Select from the numerous web, blog and news sites listed here, go there, and make your opinions supporting John McCain known," instructs the page. McCain supporters are asked to send the details of their comment to the campaign, which in turn will verify it and then reward the supporter with "points" (assumedly to accumulate for McCain swag).[Um... according to McCain's campaign site, the blogs of attention are Red State, DailyKos, and Jeff Emmanuel. Plus, it's the commenters getting paid, not you--ed. Ah, but I can delete their comments unless they hand over the McCain swag! Mmmmmmm..... swag!--ed.]

Longtime readers are likely aware that I’ve been relatively slow to fix the comments feature on the blog. Partly this was due to being distracted by the day job, partly because I enjoy the peace and quiet that comes with an end to comment spam. It appears that John McCain has provided me with an incentive to fix the comments. According to Politico’s Jonathan Martin:

John McCain’s campaign is using their campaign website to encourage supporters to post supportive comments on political blogs, including the most well-known liberal site in the blogosphere. And to make things easier, they’re including talking points with which sympathizers can use to get out the McCain message. “Select from the numerous web, blog and news sites listed here, go there, and make your opinions supporting John McCain known,” instructs the page. McCain supporters are asked to send the details of their comment to the campaign, which in turn will verify it and then reward the supporter with “points” (assumedly to accumulate for McCain swag).

[Um… according to McCain’s campaign site, the blogs of attention are Red State, DailyKos, and Jeff Emmanuel. Plus, it’s the commenters getting paid, not you–ed. Ah, but I can delete their comments unless they hand over the McCain swag! Mmmmmmm….. swag!–ed.]

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

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