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 [1], 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 [2].
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 [3] is running against Del. David Bulova (D-Fairfax).
Not quite.
Del. Greg Habeeb blogged at roanokevalleyrepublicans.blogspot.com [4] 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 [5] ran for House of Delegates, and our own D.J. McGuire [6] ran for Spotsylvania supervisor and Shaun Kenney [7] 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 [8] a Bearing Drift contributor.
Additionally, there are rumors that Jim Riley [9] of Virginia Virtucon will be running for House of Delegates this year too.
I’d also be remiss not to mention Vivian Paige [10], 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.