Shooting Wire: Blogs are players
The latest shooting wire quotes a mystery blogger:
That aversion was one that led gun bloggers, some of the new power-brokers in the gun world, to run an anti-campaign against a senior Cerberus member’s campaign for a position on the NRA board. After he failed to get elected, one blogger laughingly told me “maybe now they’ll realize if you don’t talk to us, we don’t have any use for you.”
They don’t disclose which blogger and I don’t know who it is. But I don’t actually know that anyone actively ran a Campaign against Kollitides so much as he was just openly not endorsed. This was due to his refusal to do any interviews, not show up at NRA committees he was a member of, and finally because he apparently didn’t even show up at NRA’s annual meeting. Michael Bane says:
Nice to be one of the new power-brokers, as soon as I figure out what that means. You’d think a new power broker could get ammo, wouldn’t you?
True. I’m still waiting for my wheelbarrow full of cash.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:42 am
I’d also like to know about this “campaign” to keep Kollitides off the board. I searched, and all I could find was the one post with fair questions about his candidacy given his history with the board.
As I said at Sebastian’s, when I just read the quote without the other comments around it, I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s out of context. More as in a “how are bloggers supposed to interact with someone who doesn’t interact in our medium” kind of statement. New media outreach isn’t mandatory in what we look for with board members who we’re going to support, but it would be awfully hard to get behind someone who say, doesn’t use email. (I’m not saying that Kollitides doesn’t use email, just the idea that if someone is really out of touch with the new ways that gun owners are organizing, then it’s going to be hard to say they are the best person to represent us in the future.) In many ways, the extreme lack of communication with the outdoor world on the part of Cerberus upper management does fit with that analogy.
I think I heard someone else say it best when they described his campaign for the board as a very New York-style campaign (meaning NYC way of viewing things) for a group that is very not New York. Which makes it rather funny since NRA is incorporated in New York, but obviously the reference was cultural.
June 11th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
What, Say Uncle hasn’t gotten his wheelbarrow of cash yet?! I just checked my records, and Kos signed that he has delivered 5 barrows on time. I’ve got an email in, and will follow up.