H2Otown's election blogging experiment, and an invitation to interview

Hmmm. Lisa over at H2Otown always has something interesting going on with the blog. I see tonight that it's an effort to welcome campaigners into the online community.

There are a lot of rules the contestants and their staffs have to follow, but they seem fair and geared toward starting a decent, honest conversation.

Borderline has talked about local elections before, like this entry, but I saved my analysis for after the fact -- I frankly don't want to endorse a candidate based on a limited amount of information I get from the Newton Tab, The News Tribune, and flyers that get dropped off in my mailbox. Very few local pols have emailed me, perhaps because Borderline occaisionally rips their heads off.

But Borderline will do interviews with any Waltham or Newton pol that wants to. I did one before with a local activist in Newton, and found that the format worked well. There are a couple simple ground rules, and they include that Borderline picks all the questions, the pol has the right not to answer a question but that fact will be noted in the transcript, the pol has to answer himself or herself (Borderline is good at spotting fakes) and ALL of the pols answers will be printed, except for profanity or things that could get Borderline in trouble. If you want to be interviewed, send Borderline an email.