Politicians Court Bloggers in Vegas

June 11, 2006 — -- About 1,000 bloggers have congregated in Las Vegas this weekend to gear up for the 2008 presidential race -- and some of the potential candidates were there, too.

The convention was organized by Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the liberal blog DailyKos.com and was attended by former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and former NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark, all potential Democratic presidential contenders.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. was conspicuously absent from the convention. She is notoriously disliked in the blogosphere -- especially in the liberal blogosphere.

Blogger Bryan Preston of the conservative blog HotAir.com said the blogging movement is for real, and politicians should take note.

"It probably will play a big role by hurting Democrats that try to move to the center," Preston said. "If you read the right-wing conservative blogs, well, they're all about ideas, whereas liberals do nothing but snipe and gripe at George W. Bush. They're all about power, winning the next election. Nothing else."

DailyKos -- the most popular political Web site on the Internet -- became a big supporter of Howard Dean in the last presidential cycle because he was willing to speak out against the Iraq war. Iit was largely through Dean's support on the Internet that he became, for a while anyway, the Democratic front-runner in the 2004 primary. By autumn 2003, he had raised $40 million with help from online advocates.