It amazes me what captivates political reporters for the Washington Post sometimes, but idle speculation about one of the state’s leading liberal bloggers, Ben Tribbett, and whether or not he is or isn’t running for public office, seems to have caught some sort of fascination today at the WaPO.
If Tribbett runs, he’ll be the second political blogger to jump into the fray after several years of commenting from the sidelines. Bearing Drift writer Brian Schoeneman is running against Del. David Bulova (D-Fairfax).
Not quite.
Del. Greg Habeeb blogged at roanokevalleyrepublicans.blogspot.com and was a periodic contributor to Bearing Drift…he has also stated today that he is running for re-election.
That’s just this year.
But it also got me to thinking about other bloggers who have run for political office or are contemplating doing so.
Rick Sincere ran for House of Delegates, and our own D.J. McGuire ran for Spotsylvania supervisor and Shaun Kenney ran and won to be the Vice Chair of Fluvanna County’s Board of Supervisors. We’re also honored to call former Del. Chris Saxman a Bearing Drift contributor.
Additionally, there are rumors that Jim Riley of Virginia Virtucon will be running for House of Delegates this year too.
I’d also be remiss not to mention Vivian Paige, who ran for Norfolk Treasurer.
So, this is hardly a new phenomena of bloggers running for public office. And I think that’s a difference that MSM fails to understand about bloggers – we’re not prone to sitting “on the sidelines.”
If I missed someone, I apologize. There’s always a danger when you start running down a list.
For what it’s worth, I wish Ben well. I just hope he’s serious about this and that it’s not a stunt. What some bloggers fail to realize is that their actions have an impact on the credibility of the entire medium.
