Richard Pombo Has A Blog — But YOU Can’t Read It

Richard Pombo has unveiled a new campaign website (his third in this race). I’m guessing that the change is a reaction to Jerry McNerney’s recently upgraded and spiffy-looking website. Well, Pombo’s colors may be brighter and the graphics a little more interesting than they were, but the site remains as content-less as in its previous incarnations. Pombo’s Lean Cuisine “Issues” page stands in stark contrast to Jerry McNerney’s meaty and substantive positions on issues of the day.

More interesting (at least to me) is the website's newly-introduced Pombo Blog. It’s been pretty obvious for some time now that Richard Pombo and his campaign staff have been paying attention to the blogs covering CA-11. Apparently, however, they are abysmally slow at conceptualizing the raison d’être of blogs.

If you try to access Richard Pombo’s blog, you will encounter this message: “This blog is using WordPress.com’s private blog feature.” So what, exactly, is a private blog feature? WordPress explains it this way:

What this means is that you can have a list of friends or trusted readers that can see your blog, but no one else can. This is a very interesting twist for the service, and I think it will give people the added security they have wanted for publishing more personal things.

Gee, and all this time, I thought the purpose of a political blog was to inform and engage readers — not to purposely keep them in the dark. What a purely Pombo-esque proposition: start a blog and then bar anyone who isn’t in your secret club from being able to read it.

Wow. Way to reach out to constituents. Given Richard Pombo’s dismal record, though, I don’t blame him for being afraid to engage with the voters of CA-11.

Tags: CA-11, Richard Pombo, Pombo blog, Jerry McNerney