One misconception held by people who don’t understand the internet is that they can remove a picture from their website and no one will ever know it’s there. Ellen Tauscher’s campaign staff tried it this week, and it is not going to work.
Now, rumors are that the Tauscher campaign is looking to hire an internet consultant. Someone who can neutralize the netroots, and use this new-fangled blogging thing to Tauscher’s advantage.
The very cluelessness, though, that makes a staffer go through the Congresswoman’s web site and scrub any pictures of her with Bush or Lieberman, thinking it’ll help, will make a fool out of any internet consultant who tries to step in. Hiring an internet consultant for the very purpose of insulating the candidate from the internet is a pretty good way to end someone’s career. You’d have to be awfully cynical about politics and pretty contemptuous of the netroots to take that job. Some people might want “window dressing” on their resume, but it’s not going to help Tausher convince anyone, and it’s going to make whoever takes the job a reputation as a cynical hack.