Homer and me

by Steve, October 29th, 2008

I’ve been posting my Oregon Voters’ Guide for a while (I think this is my third edition), and since I know a little bit about search engine optimization (and since this site has half-decent Google juice), I’m usually in the top five results for a search like “2008 oregon voters guide” (It was number four today, just after two hits from the state and one from OregonLive.)

That’s right, BlueOregon, Loaded Orygun, Willamette Week, Tribune, Mercury, etc. etc. etc., the computers at Google think the endorsements of a left wing hockey nut from Portland are more important than yours.

But bogus puffery aside, I do think blog endorsements are important, and it’s great that some campaigns are starting to take notice and even tout them. They might as well, since they frequently list hundreds of individual supporters.

So kudos to Ben Westlund’s campaign staff (Westlund is the Democratic candidate for State Treasurer) for touting blog endorsements of his campaign, including mine.

Even if my endorsement consisted of a single sentence fragment: “State Treasurer: Ben Westlund”.

But there it is, about 2/3 down the page, in between International Union of Operating Engineers Local 701 and Homer Williams.

Give a middle-aged, mediocre defenseman the keys to a digital printing press, and look at the kind of company he starts to keep.