November 14, 2006

Briley Blogging

Nashville Metro Council member David Briley is reaching out to the local blogosphere as he launches his campaign to become the city's next mayor. In the email inbox this afternoon:

Please find attached the press release announcing my candidacy for Mayor of Nashville. I would appreciate the opportunity to sit down with you individually or as a group. Please let me know what would work best and I will accommodate. I hope to be as accessible to you as I am to the mainstream media during this campaign so please do not hesitate to call.

I would love to have a blog. I just don't know if I can find enough time in the next few months to make it any more than just a symbolic thing but I am thinking about it.

Briley and I likely don't agree on lots of political things, but of the current crop of candidates for mayor of Nashville, he'd get my vote if I lived in Nashville rather than out in the 'burbs. He strikes me as a smart, pragmatic and innovative leader whose liberal views aren't dogma.

The rest of the candidates are rather unimpressive.

Briley really ought to blog. Some time ago, when the constitutionality of a metro wheel-tax increase was being discussed on the Nashville Scene's blog, PithInTheWind.com, Briley posted several comments exploring the issue from a legal perspective and showed he was good at using the blogging medium to discuss issues and debate questions with the citizenry.

Not only would he be good at communicating via a blog, he'd set himself apart from the rest of the candidates by doing it, for sure.

Can you imagine former Congressman and constant Candidate for Everything Bob Clement, who now wants to be Nashville's Mayor because he didn't get to be governor eight years ago or U.S. Senator two years ago, writing a daily blog on issues facing Nashville? Can you imagine it being a good read and a good addition to the public conversation?

Me neither.

Blog, Briley, blog.