Reading the tea leaves on HRC blogadbuy

Bill Beutler, formerly of the Blogometer at Hotline and now at New Media Strategies, does some very indepth sleuthing on the Hillary Clinton blogad order.

Bill highlights some questions about where/why the ads are running. My response to folks who have asked about the candidate buys: 21 months is a looooong time and there’s going to be lots of experimentation and learning along the way. The key point is that candidates — particularly Edwards and Clinton — have chosen to make significant investments in blog advertising far earlier than in advertising on other media.

Smart candidates know there’s a “blog primary.” Blogs offer a unique opportunity to connect with the insiders and activists who are the fulcrum of American political opinion and action. To illustrate this point… Bill picks up a telling detail I had missed: the HRC ads are running on Edwards’ advisor Matt Gross’s blog. This is truly advertising inside the blog beltway. (Blogway?)

Matt Gross writes:

With the primary season now upon us — or at least the netroots primary season now upon us — it seems that this is a good time to reiterate my blog ad policy.

I accept ads from any Democratic candidate or progressive organization and most private industry or public relations firms, proceeding with the assumption that my illustrious readers, being media savvy enough to find this little blog in the first place, are media savvy enough to negotiate the world of advertising and p.r. without any help from me.

…the general policy around here is laissez faire, laissez aller, laissez passer. At the going rate of $20 per week, of course.