politics or politicians

The VoxPolitics event last night was interesting, see the commentry created by Tom Coates, Euan Semple, myself and others. See also articles covering the event from the BBC with a technology angle and a politics angle; plus one from The Guardian.
One issue that I feel was only lightly touched on was the people who run blogs with political content, the emphasis was firmly on the politicians. I think that many people who blog will naturally discuss political issues, there are relatively few purely political blogs from non-politicians. So you have two types the narrow single issue blog and the more normal general purpose weblog.
The single issue blog can generate interest and keep its focus, but people are much less likely to come across it. I don't think they are too common and they are a different animal from the hobby blog, like MacOS ones or photography. They are different as they span across interest groups, like the hospital saving MP, Dr Richard Taylor did in Kidderminster. The danger is that once the immediate objective is attained the group disintegrates. The group forms from an immediate common interest to deal with a situation pulling people in, often from a geographic area, on resolution there is little common interest to keep people together.
People who blog will discuss the issues that they feel important or interesting, this is a part of blogging. This kind of weblog is not a one trick pony with a short life span, for many people they are a long term means of communication and self-expression. Weblogs are a good way of highlighting an issue, see my East London line post for an example, it has started to get a good body of comments recently. People are more likely to become interested because they have come to know you through your weblog, your reputation and history are there for them to assess.
Weblogs are about people, a person runs it, your feedback tends to get a personal reply which builds a realtionship between the website owner and his or her audience. Part of it is about trust too, there is an expectation of what you might get from a weblog, sudden transitions in editorial content or style will diminish the relationship one has with the weblog.
The panel talks from last night missed some of this, too much of the emphasis was on getting some politicians blogging and all will be well. For me the focus was too much on the technology from some speakers and not enough on who and why. I wanted more on getting politically aware people blogging.
Politicians will suffer as bloggers, because only minor figures will be able to run a weblog, they will be hindered by audience scaling to too large a number and then they will end up with a broadcast model rather than a weblog. A minister with a blog is unlikely for several reasons, accountability is one factor, time and ability to respond to feedback is another.
I'd like to see more people blogging politically, I think that they are a good medium for expressing personal opinion and they encourage coherent thought about political issues, which can only be for the better. Whether this is expressed as "campaign weblogs" or part of one's own blog is not really the issue. If there are more people asking public questions of politicians then maybe it will encourage a more accountable representation from local council level right up to Government.