Just my unstudied opinion, but I think on the Democratic side, the "netroots" was dominated by Howard Dean supporters. The Kerry campaign never really seemed comfortable with Dean supporters and vice-versa.

I'm sorry, Josh, but I read that entire essay and thought it was load of rubbish. For example, concerning Paul Hackett's campaign here in Ohio, the top local blogs covering the race were pulling in maybe 200 local visitors a day, if that. A story in the Cincinnati Enquirer probably gets seen by more than 100,000 readers. And the Cincinnati broadcast media market can reach 800,000 or so local viewers and listeners. Even if only half of those readers, listeners and viewers were in the 2nd Congressional District, we're still talking about blogs affecting a couple of hundred votes, and traditional media affecting EVERYONE ELSE.

So Daou complains about Kerry's staff looking at the Internet primarily as a fundraising tool. Well, if you look at the effectiveness of the blogosphere compared to the effectiveness of traditional media, it's not hard to see why they came to that conclusion.

Furthermore, blogosphere ubiquity does not translated into widespread political recognition without the help of the traditional media. Even now, Paul Hackett's name-ID throughout Ohio is minuscule, and that's why the DSCC is less than enthusiastic about his chances if he runs for the U.S. Senate against Mike DeWine. And so Hackett's chances really depend on using the blogosphere to raise money far more than on motivating potential voters.

(BTW, if Hackett is trying to raise blogosphere money in a crowded 2006 election when there are other, more Kos-friendly candidates also with their electronic hands out, he's going to come up short. Certainly a lot shorter than the more than $3 million DeWine already has on hand.)

So I think Daou has a heightened sense of his own, and the blogosphere's, importance in setting the terms of political debate. Bloggers did not create some sort of "triangulation" that has now somehow completely crippled the Bush White House. As polls have indicated, conservatives are increasingly angry at Bush for a variety of reasons, and the incompetence of the Katrina relief efforts is only one (and a minor one at that).