Lindsay Said 'No' to John Edwards

Lindsay Beyerstein, proprietress of Majikthise[1], has an article up on Salon describing how the Edwards campaign approached her to be their blogmistress before they approached Amanda Marcotte or Shakespeare's Sister. She turned them down, and explains in the article why. If it weren't for the fact that the article appeared after Amanda and Shakes stepped down, she would seem eerily prescient. As it is, she's right on the money, even leaving hindsight out:

There is a breed of blogger that has proven useful working in an official capacity for political campaigns -- the party activist/consultant/blogger hybrid, someone like Matt Stoller of MyDD. Ideally, but not always, that kind of blogger puts his or her own blog on hold while being paid by a campaign, perhaps returning to it once the race is run. And the content of a party activist's blog is heavy on poll numbers, policy discussions and electoral minutiae. An opposition researcher might unearth something allegedly "intemperate" from the archives and use it against the candidate, but that risk is less than with the other style of blogger, an independent polemicist like Amanda. ...

In my opinion, though, the real lesson of the Webb campaign [for senator from Virginia] is how effective bloggers can be when they're outside the campaign. I think the candidates who benefit the most from the netroots are the ones who can inspire bloggers to do their work for free. They create unpaid, unofficial surrogates. Webb is a netroots success story because his team captured the imagination of independent bloggers and online activists. ...

The Edwards campaign wants decentralized people-powered politics. Ironically, by hiring well-known bloggers to manage a destination Web site, it was actually centralizing and micromanaging. Every campaign needs a blog, but the most important part of a candidate's netroots operation is the disciplined political operatives who can quietly build relationships with bloggers outside the campaign. And the bomb-throwing surrogates need to be outside, where they can make full use of their gifts without saddling a campaign with their personal political baggage.

[1]My friends look at me oddly when I pronounce Majikthise "mah-heek-THEEZ-uh," the way it looks to me. Am I nuts, or just not a leg man?