"So then I picked a fight with a blogger..."

I love to argue. It's probably due to my Scottish heritage. Even the great Roman army stopped short of entering into Scotland when they got a look at my ancestors. Thousands of angry Scotsmen in itchy wool skirts are nothing to mess around with. Even I have learned that not every battle is worth fighting. That's why I marvel at people who would attempt to take on a blogger by commenting on his/her posts. What on earth could they possibly hope to gain? They expect the blogger to do a big mea culpa post professing the err of their ways? "Thank you Mr. Anonymous for pointing out that I don't share your point of view." "Never pick a fight with someone who buys their ink by the barrel" goes the old saying. I think the 21st century equivalent is "never pick a fight with someone who has unlimited bandwidth." I'm very fortunate. So far the local bloggers that are following the city council race in the 4th district seem to like me. It also helps that I haven't really given them anything to pick at, although TKC thinks my blog is too vanilla. I said recently in an interview that I believe this race may be the first in KC politics to be directly affected by blogs. Bloggers are people with strong opinions in an unfettered venue with thousands of readers. They are becoming (have become?) a very powerful political presence and a fight with them is not something a wise individual would choose to take on. The aging power structure in this town doesn't really get the blogosphere. They think they do but these are people who didn't grow up with email, IM's and MySpace. Having the resources to hire a professionally done webpage is not an internet strategy. It's more of an admission that you don't understand cyberspace. We're nine months out from the primary and already the "comment sniping" has begun on a couple of local blogs. This is either going to get very ugly, very funny or both. That's all for now. I have to get going. I spotted a hornets' nest the other day and I think it would be a really good idea to go poke it with a stick.