Ari Fleischer Nails It (UPDATED)

Alexis Simendinger over at National Journal has a good piece up on the way that new media is changing political campaigns.

Noted: New Media is changing absolutely everything (think the invention of the movable type printing press on steroids), but that's another story.

But - and we can't stress this enough - beware false technology prophets who come to you at your campaign office (or business) and promise you the 21st century moon, no "content" needed.

Or, as Ari Fleischer says in the NJ piece:

"The wonderful thing about all these changes is that you can communicate better and faster, but the enduring factor is that you have to have something to communicate,” he cautioned. “You have to connect with the voters on something the voters care about. Substance and character come first, and speed comes second.”

Content talks and bullshit walks. Still.

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(UPDATED) A reader writes in with this:

"content talks, bullshit walks." ??? remember the swift boat debacle? how about sen. max cleland ... yeah, that vet was surely a coward who wasn't serious about american security. how about, say, ethanol subsidies? the other day, bill maher complained something along the lines of "how did our scientists make such a horrible mistake?" ... um, the scientists warned on the question of arable land ... no one listened.

ari fliescher? an avocate of straight talk? c'mon ... and you accuse the obamatrons of being all fairy tale land?

To which we responded with this:

Ha!

[Effective] content doesn't have to equal truth and fairness. All it has to equal is something people connect with. And if that's untruth and unfairness, well that [sometimes] works too.

We should have been more clear.