Milford Candidates Put Campaigns Online
By Frank Juliano, Connecticut Post, Bridgeport
Sep. 25–MILFORD — Mayoral candidate Kerri Rowland is using Internet video clips and blogs to speak to voters directly, the way another Democrat, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, used his radio “fireside chats.”
Rowland taped four short videos that have begun running on her Web site, www.kerrirowland.com, along with a message board.
“I go knocking on doors all over Milford, too,” she said Monday. “This campaign is all about letting the voters know who I am and what I stand for. The more people I reach, the more successful my campaign will be.”
Jack Fowler, a Republican strategist and publisher of the National Review magazine, said the party’s local candidates, including incumbent Mayor James L. Richetelli Jr., will also use video clips to reach voters.
“I’d say that if you are not doing it, you’ve got kind of a horse and buggy thing going on,” Fowler said. “I run a magazine whose Web site is profoundly influential, and I’d say at this point that the Web plays an important part in any political campaign.”
Richetelli said that he still believes meeting voters in person, by going door to door or attending public events, is the best way to campaign.
But the mayor said he, too, will tape a video segment that will run on his Web site, www.milfordrepublicans.org/mayorjim/jimhome.htm.
GOP town committee member Ralph Piselli is making the video clips for the local party’s underticket, and has completed them for the Board of Education candidates, Fowler said.
But while several clips of Rowland have been uploaded to You Tube, including her acceptance of the Democratic Party’s nomination, Republicans said they don’t have a presence on the popular video-sharing site.
Bob Adams, who directed the Democrats’ clips, is a prolific video blogger with more than 100 YouTube clips and is featured in a BBC-Sundance Channel documentary “Blog Wars,” said Richard Smith, the local party chairman.
“We’re using blogs and the Internet to get the word out,” Smith said. “We’re preparing videos from all or most of our underticket as well, and we’ll likely launch those this week.”
Rowland, a 4th District alderman and the marketing director for New Standard Institute here, said she is comfortable using the Internet and familiar with the technology.
Her blog is one way to get the word out, the candidate said. She posts messages and answers e-mailed questions from voters, Rowland said.
Frank Juliano, Milford bureau chief, can be reached at 878-2130.
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