Tracey Brooks, running for Congress in the 21st District, sent out a remarkable press release today.

Democratic Congressional candidate Tracey Brooks today announced the launch of her online advertising campaign, posting her first ad to The Albany Project, www.thealbanyproject.com, a leading political and campaign blogosphere resource.[...]

"We're so excited to launch our first online ad -- and do it on a blog -- as we continue to bring our message of change directly to the people in new and exciting ways," said Brooks.

"We are the first campaign to post an online ad, as we were the first to reach thousands of voters in a single night through a telephone town hall meeting. We were also the first to launch YouTube videos, online volunteer registration, online fundraising, and internet social networking tools." [Emphasis added]

What's remarkable is that she's right: her campaign is the first in this entire cycle to buy an ad on a blog. Think about this for a moment: only one campaign in the state of New York has bought an ad on a Progressive blog for the 2008 elections. Or maybe that's not so much remarkable as it's sad.

Think about this for a moment: if you're running for office, what would you do to cheaply and effectively reach your core audience, the people who are interested in politics, people who do things like volunteer and donate to campaigns? You could do worse, frankly, than spending a few hundred bucks, and that's really all it costs, to buy an ad on a blog. This is not neurosurgery, it's common sense. As an aside, I deal with candidates eseentially every day wondering how they can replicate Obama's success online. Guess what? The man spent millions of dollars online. That's how that happened.

And it's certainly not the case, one might add, that candidates - or organizations, or campaigns, or whomever - have no interest in blogs. As evidence, I submit my email inbox, which overflows with press releases, announcements, and pretty regularly, with emails from friends, acquaintances and complete strangers asking to plug their fundraising event for some candidate I probably have never heard of and could care less about.

But oddly enough, the next logical progression in what seems like a natural train of thought gets made by almost nobody. That progression is buying an ad. On this blog, you can do that here. It makes no sense to me that you'd get on the phone with me, for example, and spend half an hour of your valuable time trying to pitch me on something - like the candidate who once called me five times in one day - and not understand that you can have your exposure for a couple of bucks without having to deal with me.

Here's that link to buy an ad, again.

So really, the next time you think of sending out your press release or pick up that phone to flog some stuff, how about you buy an ad? Seriously? Believe it or not, running a blog actually costs money. Nobody's getting rich here, by the way. But if you think we do this merely because we all have trust funds and spend our days waiting for your phone calls, you're mistaken. We're activists, and if you're interested in supporting activism, how about spending a few bucks, instead of taking for granted that the blogs exist to spread your message at no cost to you?

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