[Preechr]

Rightest talk radio and leftist blogs have become very influential. That's very astute of you, Kevin, to note the parallel. Given your kahlality in our last exchange, I'd have to say you've just become surprising again.

Of course, the right side of the political internet has also begun to leave it's mark, where Air-America is still pretty lame.

The true power of Kevin's "the blogger Lefty ilk" is not in their ability to raise money, as campaign-centric Kevvy would have you believe. It is in their ability to shape the public debate. As I have explained before, politics is not about the money at it's core. It's about power, and blogs like Markos' remain free to see while building the power required to "grass roots" their party so effectively real Democrats like Lieberman and Miller are left in the dust wondering "WTF just happened?"

Max, you may think you get no input from "lefty blogs," but you do. As Kevin has indicated through his words, though not yet come to grips with in his actual understanding, The power of blogging lies in it's control of the media. Nowadays, when the columnists you regularly read sit down to write a column, they are compelled, as they always have been, to check their opinons against the trendiest and edgiest opinions currently floating on the periphery of the human experience. The big difference is that, these days, that can be found easier on certain sites within the internet.

See, Kevin... the short-sighted student of campaigning... will be the first among us to rabidly extoll the benefits and virtues of messaging and other such stuff like that, but he's not so good at picking up on underlying stratgeies of political movements. The real big thing that has happened with the blossoming of political blogging is that the most zealous of either side of the political spectrum can now have their very own shot at shaping the political "messages" we hear.

The columns that you read have been directly influenced by the blogs you have yet to check out. Generally speaking, the information being presented to you as well vetted factual data has at least survived un-addressed within the blog-o-sphere for at least a week before it was used to make whatever point you read in your column.

By watching the blogs, generally speaking, you can see what's coming up in your columns about a month in advance. Blogs are live action focus-grouping of only the most focused groups. Blogs are the new black.