The next president will be elected, or something resembling that, into office in about a week. We’ve seen a tremendous growth in the use of blogging, the “citizens’ media”, by not only those following the news and efforts of the candidates but also from the campaigns themselves.

The Kerry-Edwards team wins hands-down in their use of blogging and technology (at least in my opinion). This could be a simple admittance that their likely voters are usually connected and in touch with their Internet selves. Of course, it could just be plain, old-fashioned common-sense that there’s tons of people that care about things reading blogs and it’s a great medium to take advantage of.

This leads me to ask one thing, “Should we expect a blog.whitehouse.gov?” In many ways, I think of blogging as RSS’s greatest ally. The reality is that, if you wanted to, you could think of blogging as RSS’s preferred presentation format - as opposed to thinking of RSS as an output of the blogging experience.

Now, put that opinion aside. How much more active would you be with your local government if, say, you could get a feed (hopefully distilled by one or more reliable sources, of the daily/weekly/monthly proceedings and open issues relating to certain topics (which you’ve designated). I’ve often felt that civic responsibility is realistically too much responsibility. How a Senator stands to hold an opinion on every subject matter requiring legislation across a state baffles me. I can, however, quite easily see how my role as a parent might influence my interest in child care issues. If more of the people that are changed by legislation take part, we divide the “responsibility” workload and, logically (though that’s not enough of a test) we get better results across the board.

So what’s the solution really? I have no idea. I was thinking that it would be cool to have thousands of streams flowing from the government. These need not be confidential in any manner, but open enough that I can get a grasp on the new information as it is made available. If it’s hard for a Senator that endures it “daily” how much harder is it for us to get it in huge globs?

Food for thought.