The DelawareLiberal Interview With Tom Noyes

Tom Noyes won Delaware’s Best Blogger Award in 2007 by acclamation. He followed that up in 2008 by leveraging his blog TommyWonk to help get the Bluewater Wind deal done AND he has been chosen by the DNC to represent Delaware bloggers at the Democratic National Convention.

I had the chance to sit down (via email) with him and ask him a few questions about blogging and his upcoming trip to the Democratic National Convention in Denver

Jason: Okay…you know Delaware Liberal was competing with you to be picked as the state blogger from Delaware so I’m dying to know…Who did you have to sleep with to get this coveted State Blogger Corps spot?

Tom: I honestly didn’t know that was a requirement. Maybe I’m just saving myself for my second marriage.

Jason: Are you going to be in the hotel with the Delaware delegation?

Tom: I’ll be in a different hotel nearby. But I’ve already met most of the folks from Delaware.

The A-list folks will get the downtown hotels; I’ll be in one down by the Interstate, though there seems to be a good light rail link directly to the convention site.

Jason: You know most of these people pretty well – who do you think you’ll be partying with?

Tom: Five nights with the country’s leading Democrats? I’m sure I’ll find someone to hang with.

Jason: I meant Delaware People. Are you and Celia Cohen going to let your hairs down? Are there any Delaware politicos do you want to get to know better?

Tom: I’ve had mine cut short for the summer. As for the Delaware delegation, there are some younger folks—up and comers—I’d like to get to know.

Jason: When you found out you were going, did part of you hope for a brokered convention?

Tom: There is no part of me that hoped for a messy convention. I’m interested in seeing a well-ordered juggernaut that combines message discipline with genuine enthusiasm, and sets up an overwhelming ground game.

By the way, if you want to know what an old-fashioned brokered convention is like, try reading up on the Democrats in 1932 or the Republicans in 1860. Accounts from the time sound like dispatches from the circles of Hell. Even worse, they didn’t have air conditioning, which may be why the candidates themselves stayed away, at least until FDR flew in to give his acceptance speech in 1932.

Jason: How do you think your coverage is going to be different that whoever is being sent by the News Journal?

Tom: There will be plenty of places to read or see what Obama and others say. I want to try to give folks a sense of what it would be like to be there. And I will continue to offer the mind-numbing policy analysis my readers have come to expect.

Jason: Your first post was about the famous Christo “Gates” exhibit in New York City’s Central Park –- at the time did you think you were going to be doing a political blog or did you think it was just going to be a sort of online journal?

Tom: Actually, my first post was about a terrific parody of The Gates called The Crackers. I went back and checked my first full month of blogging; I wrote about Social Security, corporate governance and the Terry Schiavo fiasco. I’d like to write more about science and culture, but I’ve been busy.

Jason: If you were offered a spot as an opinion columnist at the New Journal would you take it?

Tom: Actually, I think that Delaware bloggers could easily replace the NJ editorial board, and have enough talent for a deep bench.

Jason: You flatter me, but I don’t know…What does it pay? How much vacation do they get?

Tom: More to the point, I’m as interested in doing as I am in writing. Writing on a newspaper’s editorial page seems somehow limited. Blogging allows me to write about and be involved in an issue like wind power, and not just sit on the sidelines offering my opinion.

Jason: Where do you see political blogging in ten years?

Tom: How should I know?

But if you’re looking for clues as to how long blogging can last, The Daily Howler was started in April, 1998. I don’t think they even called it blogging then. Talking Points Memo was started in November, 2000.

I do think that there will be a place for good, entertaining, informative writing. I try to write in a way that will hold up for more than a news cycle. Some of my posts from two or three years ago still rank high in Google searches. Try “economic value of recycling” or “economics of wind power” or “map of Aztlan” or “Mr. Bill and Sluggo.”

Jason: You got a lot of credit in the press for helping the Bluewater Wind deal; did you pick up strategy tips for blogger issue advocacy going forward? In other words, even though we won, are there things you would have done differently?

Tom: I think I was able to fill the gap between the scholarly filings of professors Kempton and Firestone and the need for a focused message that ordinary folks can understand and articulate.

If there’s one conclusion I would offer, it’s that blogging alone isn’t enough. I spoke to hearings, seminars, political gatherings, rallies, and in the traditional media. I wrote and produced radio spots, one of which included my father as a narrator. I discussed the issues with other activists, legislators, candidates for public office and anyone else who was interested. Not everything I did or discussed made its way onto TommyWonk.

Jason: I think of you and Mike Mahaffie as Delaware’s gentleman bloggers….do you ever censor yourself? I mean do you ever type something and then say, “No. That wouldn’t fit with the kind of ‘brand’ I’m trying to build.”

Tom: Many times. I have written entire posts and left them on my hard drive; good stuff, too. It’s called editing. You might try it yourself.

Jason: No time. Gotta keep sticking it to the man. Speaking of which…Be honest. Isn’t Tom Carper a crumb bum? He is, isn’t he?

Tom: There you go again, trying to get me to call powerful politicians names, even if “crumb bum” sounds like an epithet my grandmother might have used.

Jason: I’ll take that as a yes. One more question, who is Delaware’s hottest blogger?

Tom: Hottest is as hottest does. Show me the money.