Brunner and Fisher : Transparency, Accessibility and Campaign 3.0

Yesterday, we debuted some never before seen footage of Jennifer Brunner. The clips were bonus footage from our interview last March. The point we were trying to make was this: If you are a candidate for office and anyone in the blogging community asks for you to sit down and talk for 30 minutes on-camera or off, you should seriously consider the opportunity a privilege and not a burden to be avoided. In this new era of campaigning, trying to "overcontrol" your message or cover yourself in secrecy will get you nowhere. Brunner's campaign agreed to sit without preconditions and the interview went nice and smooth.

There more you let us see, the more we'll connect with you, and in turn, allow you to connect with our readers. Jennifer Brunner's campaign (generally) seems to grasp this. Lee Fisher's campaign, to this point, has not. Not only has getting an on-camera interview been virtually impossible, but his campaign has been slow to adopt technology and social networking. He's got lots of Facebook followers. That's good. Unfortunately, he's got a Twitter account, but never updates. Meanwhile, Brunner is on her Twitter account talking about her dogs, her cats, going to the opera, shopping at Whole Foods, yadda, yadda.

I want a Senator that feels like a human and not a calculated robot. I don't think Lee Fisher is a robot, but his campaign is having a hard time convincing me on the calculated part. It's sad when the most "real" Fisher moment of the campaign happened on a conservative blog when another blogger posted a clip of a stressed out, shirtless Fisher typing at his keyboard at 1AM while his son was jamming a camera in his face. It made Lee look like a real person. That's what we need to see more of. More human. More Campaign 3.0, less Campaign97™.

I want to give all the campaigns the best I've got in as fair and impartial a manner as I can, but I have to call it the way I see it. This column is not about attacking Lee. Really, it's not. This is about a frustration I'm feeling with all candidates and campaigns who have this stubborn, single-mindedness about what campaigns are and how they work.

So I beg you again. Help us, help you.

Anyway, here are the final two segments of the "Lost Brunner Interviews." Here we find out Jennifer's favorite sports team and her favorite Senator (other than Sherrod Brown). Enjoy!