"An Ohio special election result shows how Democrats are harnessing the power of the blogosphere.--Aug. 5, 2005 - No fewer than three esteemed political reporters from The Washington Post were in the audience taking notes on a steamy Thursday afternoon at a forum called “Reflections of a Blogger,” sponsored by the New Politics Institute, a progressive think tank. There were plenty of other news stories to pursue, notably increased violence in Iraq that claimed 21 Marines in two days and a wave of new polls showing declining confidence in President Bush’s leadership. In one survey, taken by Public Agenda before the latest spasm of violence, 82 percent of Americans said they worry “a lot” or “somewhat” that the Iraq war is taking too many lives.
Two days earlier, an antiwar Democrat had come close to winning a special election in Ohio for a congressional seat assumed to be safe for Republicans. Former Marine reservist Paul Hackett, who returned from Iraq to run for Congress, had gotten a huge boost from bloggers around the country. Leading the charge was Markos Moulitsas, founder of the progressive Daily Kos, which attracts hundreds of thousands of daily visits and is considered one of the most popular political blogs on the Internet. For Democrats desperate to find their way back to a winning coalition, Moulitsas, 33, has emerged as one of the most creative thinkers and activists in the progressive ranks. The Post team, along with reporters from other national publications and scores of political operatives, had come to get a glimpse of the future."-from the article by Eleanor Clift, writing in Newsweek (web only),
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