John McCain Blogger Conference Call

Today SP was invited to participate in Sen. McCain's blogger conference call--a new process for this blogger, at least.

Key questions and responses--on the North Carolina ad, "unnecessary, unwarranted"; responding to natural disasters in a quicker, better fashion; achieving the "American dream" is better handled at the local rather than Federal level; how to make California competitive and compete in the West in general--knowing the water, land, and environmental issues better than the opposition; McCain is not the candidate for raising taxes, and has a better understanding of how to deal with the economy; Sen. Obama should repudiate Weather Underground terrorists Bernardine Dohrn and William Ayers, and apologize for his comments about Sen. Tom Coburn.

Sen. McCain gamely answered questions (you can view a recap in the liveblog below), and in the time he spent speaking with the bloggers, one could sense a candidate at ease and one that had built a rapport with several of the more prominent bloggers. It is great to see the GOP nominee take advantage of the "new media"--bloggers in general--to add to his campaign outreach efforts, and feels comfortable doing so. This wasn't a "handled" event, as you can see from the North Carolina GOP ad questions. For a candidate being attacked as being "older than" in a gratuitously childish campaign ad, he certainly demonstrated his ability to recognize the opportunities afforded by the new technology. His campaign's outreach to bloggers, especially smaller regional ones like SP, provides a great deal of encouragement.

I look forward to the next conference call opportunity, and a chance to ask questions relevant to the Colorado/intermountain West area.

If you have question suggestions, you can leave them in the comments.

Others blogging:
Hugh Hewitt
Ed Morrissey