Blogs and the Left: An Emerging Symbiosis

Veteran N.Y. Times political reporter Adam Nagourney, reporting from the blog conference in Las Vegas, writes that “the blogosphere has become for the left what talk radio has been for the right: a way of organizing and communicating to supporters.”

N.Y. Times:

LAS VEGAS, June 9 ? If any more proof were needed of the rising influence of bloggers ? at least for the Democratic Party ? it could be found here on Friday on the Las Vegas Strip, where the old and new worlds of American politics engaged in a slightly awkward if mostly entertaining clash of a meeting.

There were the bloggers ? nearly a thousand of them, many of them familiar names by now ? emerging from the shadows of their computers for a three-day blur of workshops, panels and speeches about politics, the power of the Internet and the shortcomings of the Washington media. And right behind them was a parade of prospective Democratic presidential candidates and party leaders, their presence a tribute to just how much the often rowdy voices of the Web have been absorbed into the very political process they frequently disdain, much to the amazement, and perhaps discomfort, of some of the bloggers themselves.

“I see you guys as agents of advocacy ? that’s why I’m here,” said Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a Democrat and a prospective 2008 presidential candidate, who flew here at the last minute to attend the YearlyKos 2006 Convention. Bloggers, Mr. Richardson said later, “are a major voice in American politics.”

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