This blog is a terrible idea
No one is more surprised than I am to find myself launching a blog.
Politicians keeping a blog – or tweeting, or otherwise oversharing their momentary musings – is a terrible idea, politically speaking.
I know there’s a lot of hype around social media and politics, and some if it is well-deserved (though not all of it). But if you’re not running for President, some of this stuff just doesn’t scale down very well. I’ve always said social media would destroy more political careers than it would enhance. Thus far, I’ve generally been proven right.
Reasons this blog is a terrible idea:
- Probably no one will read it;
- Scratch that - one person will definitely read it: the opposition researcher for my next political opponent;
- I have not noticed that the Internet is generally lacking in content;
- I don’t really have time for this;
- I have always said politicians should talk less and listen more, and that is especially true in my case;
- I will almost certainly say things I will later regret.
So why am I doing this?
Mostly, it’s an itch I kind of want to scratch. Plus it might be fun. If it’s not fun, I’ll probably let it die, so don’t get too attached to it. (As if…)
Being a member of the minority party in the lower house of the state legislature has all the frustrations one might imagine. So another purpose of this blog might be catharsis. We’ll see.
I’m tagging this post with all the topics I hope to write about - even though this initial post isn’t really about any of them. It’ll give you an idea of what I’ll be writing about, which will give you an idea of whether to come back. (How did you get here, anyway?) I’m sure it will evolve over time. Or just quietly disappear. I’m really not optimistic.
By the way, I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m using Tumblr for the first time and have no idea what half of these buttons mean (like the box on my screen right now that says “let people photo reply”…what does that mean?) And why am I asking you questions? I don’t even think Tumblr allows you to post comments.
I’ll get this figured out eventually, but have some patience.
And no, I don’t need to be reminded of my derogatory opinions about Twitter. I still kind of think I’m right about that. But four years, billions of dollars, and trillions of tweets later, I’m open to the possibility that I might have been wr-wr-wr-wr….not exactly right.
We’ll see. Meanwhile, I think I’ve enabled this blogging platform to post stuff to twitter, so I guess now I’m tweeting. Who’d have thunk?
