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I've been working on campaigns for decades now, and I can tell you that you are likely adopting a victim mentality that is far too specific. These folks didn't care that you were young and feminist. They cared that you had what they considered to be a weakness they could exploit.
The myspace generation -- with all their opinions and laundry airing online -- are going to be crippled so long as the public (and the myspacers) care about opposition research barrages.
It will take a bunch of folks caring enough to say they don't care -- from John Edwards to the average news consumer -- to disperse this.
In the meantime, every blogger who wants to get involved in politics is going to be wearing his or her old posts like a face tattoo.
Get tough, and understand that most right wing activists have a much more exaggerated idea of keeping their truly private and controversial bits to themselves. The young left is so open minded about how people *should* interpret them, their brains have fallen out.
You want to know why your mothers and grandmothers (and fathers and grandfathers) were, perhaps, not quite so ballsy and outspoken in every public forum? Maybe it wasn't because we didn't have nerve. Maybe we were strategically reserved, so we wouldn't find ourselves picked off like sitting ducks by the oppo guys.
Those smoke-filled back rooms were the networks of trust of years past. Perhaps our bitching didn't reach as wide an audience as your blog, but it rarely came back to bite us in the butts.
What's the proper tradeoff between transparency and open opinion, and keeping oneself strategically effective for the long haul?
Me? I'm not running for office any time soon, myself, but I made that choice and I understand the consequences of living an open life.
I'm not blaming the victim. I'd love to live in a world where openness wouldn't screw you -- but you have to understand this ain't it, and it won't be so long as folks consistently cave.
