Trouble in Libtopia?Ron Klain
hits on many themes about the liberal blogosphere I have explored over the last several years:
But notwithstanding this stunning success, this week’s withdrawal by John Edwards, coming a week after the departure of Dennis Kucinich, means that both of the preferred presidential candidates of the liberal blogosphere are now out of the race. Instead, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the two candidates who have drawn some of the sharpest criticism on progressive blogs, are the only ones who will make it to Super Tuesday. A similar thing happened in 2004, when Howard Dean and Wes Clark, the two candidates most strongly backed by blogs, were beaten by John Kerry, who wasn’t a blog favorite.
But he also misses the mark in the very next paragraph:
The blogosphere has had impressive electoral success in Senate and House races, especially in 2006.
Actually the Democrats had impressive electoral success in Senate and House races in 2006. But as I never tire of mentioning, the lib bloggers devoted a significant amount of time and energy in trying to defeat a Democrat, Joe Lieberman. And they failed. The success of the Democrats in 2006 had little to do with the blogosphere.
And I suspect that the success of the Republicans in 2004 had little to do with the conservative blogs as well. It's easy to fall into the trap of blogger triumphalism, but look at the Republican presidential campaign this year. How many big conservative blogs backed McCain?
