Those of us who like to think of our blogs as political diaries get a morale boost from this project, in which George Orwell’s diaries are being reprinted in real time 70 years after he wrote them. What a great idea!

The NYT reports:

The scholars behind the project say they are trying to get more attention for Orwell online and to make him more relevant to a younger generation he would have wanted to speak to.

“I think he would have been a blogger,” said Jean Seaton, a professor at the University of Westminster in London who administers the Orwell writing prize and thought up the idea of the blog. …

Like any good political blogger, Orwell devoured the news, making clippings and looking for shifts in public and government opinion, Professor Seaton said. “He’s partly obsessed by the newspapers because of the start of the world war,” she said. “The diary is written against this almost traumatized understanding that there is going to have to be a second world war.” [e.a.]

Serializing it in a replay of real time is pure genius as a means of drawing people into the diaries, because one of the most enticing aspects of any drama is that you don’t know how things will turn out:

Professor Seaton said the material was full of tension.

“You do know how this story is going to end,” she said, “but one of the brilliant things is that Orwell doesn’t know how it is going to end.”

A most excellent way to tell the story of part of the twentieth century to a new generation: with hyperlinks!

Bravo!

Joe Klein went to a Frank Luntz-led focus group of independent voters and found out—surprise, surprise!—that they want details and specifics and reliability and trustworthiness:

–”Change” as a theme is over. Too vague. And Obama’s rhetoric has begun to seriously cut against him. “No more oratory,” one woman said. “Give us details.” (There may be a racial component to this, by the way, as some white people associate soaring oratory with African-American leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesse Jackson.)

–What do they want? Given a list of 31 personal attributes the next President might have and asked to pick the eight most important, “Accountability” finished highest with 13 votes, next was “Someone I can trust” with 12, “honest and ethical” was third with 11. “Agrees with me on the issues” got one vote. They didn’t care if the candidate was a Washington insider or outsider. “A dynamic and charismatic leader” got two votes…(Add: When Luntz asked them which was more important, “accountability” or “change,” the vote was 17 to 4 in favor of accountability.)

–What does “accountability” mean? That, I think, is the key to this election. They know that the country is on the wrong track and big changes are necessary, but they don’t trust politicians, or government, to bring those changes about. (McCain’s government waste message resonates big-time with these people.) I got the feeling that if either candidate said, “I’m going to hire a private accounting firm to keep track of any new initiative I offer and make sure that it’s being done as efficiently as possible,” that would have a big impact on people.

Most interesting: it wasn’t about the issues at all for most undecided voters, or about the image and presentation of the candidates; rather, it seems to be about the candidates’ essence, or character.

accountable

trustworthy

honest and ethical

That’s what we seem to want.

Expect a lot more negative advertising to poke holes in the other guy’s character.

Good luck to Barack Obama. He’s gonna need it! (That’s what my gut tells me, but my gut has been known to lie!)