Influence of the Blogosphere.

Peter Daou, a communications consultant for the Kerry campaign, has written a piece on political power of blogs. It is a good column but not a great one. His thesis point is this:

Simply put, without the participation of the media and the political establishment, the netroots alone cannot generate the critical mass necessary to alter or create conventional wisdom.

Alone the blogosphere can't do much. Not enough people read it on a daily basis. However the people who do read are often important and influential. It can form an powerful link between the mainstream media and the political groups.

The end of the article is practically worthless though. He makes horrible mistakes in analyzing the problems of the right and left sides of the 'sphere. Most of this is because he is a far lefty and sees the world through those colored glasses.

He makes the usual far left mistakes about the political nature of the MSM. The MSM is to the right of the leftist activists, but it is still party-line Democrat and to the left of the general population as a whole and far to the left of actual conservatives.

He also mischaracterizes the right side of the blogosphere as stalwart party-liners. Most of the rightosphere is actual libertarian and only supports Bush as the lesser of two evils. He also seems to think the right wing is made up of stupid sheep held together by party loyalty and a ruled with an iron fist. We aren't. We just happen to look at the facts and come to the same conclusions, much like the left probably does.

Thankfully the leftosphere doesn't seem to get it yet. The way to beat the Republicans is not by moving to the left. That just forces the two wings of the party closer together (lesser of two evils). The way to beat the right is to move to the right. Champion fiscal responsibility and defend the common man from encroaching government power. In short, be like Bill Clinton without the blowjobs.

Via Josh Claybourn at In the Agora