While TIME Magazine's editors named their own list of the Top 100 most influential people, and dissed Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the process, the magazine also conducted a straw poll to find out whom its readers would name of the Top 100 most influential individuals -- and readers ranked Markos Moulitsas as #45 in Your TIME 100.
TIME's summary of Kos noted that on the "Pro" side, the founder of the Daily Kos:
Runs a politically liberal blog, dailykos.com, which receives between 14 and 24 million visits per month, organizes netroots campaigns and an annual convention called YearlyKos.
Yet on the "Con" side, TIME sniped:
With the exception of the 2006 elections, Moulitsas is often criticized for endorsing candidates that rarely win elections, raising questions about his site's effectiveness.
Um, yeah. With the exception of backing a landslide victory for progressive Democrats, Kos has been criticized for endorsing candidates who have reframed issues, changed campaign dynamics, redefined grassroots organizing and fundraising, and sometimes still fall short of victory on election day, but who leave behind a more organized and energetic base.
Likewise, with the exception of navigating his way to North America, Leif Erikson took a lot of wrong turns and never stopped to ask the puffins for directions.
Over 200 candidates were given a rating of 1 to 100. This is the first time that Markos has been ranked in the TIME readers' poll. He is ranked just behind General David Petraeus (#44) and he just edged out actor and green activist Leonardo DiCaprio (#46). And, at least in this readers' poll, Kos outranked both MSNBC's Keith Olbermann (#49) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (#50).
Also in Your TIME 100, readers rated author Richard Dawkins at #7, Bono at #10, Daily Show host Jon Stewart at #12, Barack Obama at #20, and Al Gore at #33. At the top spot, Rain, the Korean R&B singer, had over 470,000 votes, over 100,000 more than runner-up Stephen Colbert (#2), host of The Colbert Report.
No doubt, Colbert will note this important fact with Jon Stewart in their nightly banter: The #2 spot is exactly 10 spots ahead of the #12 spot, for those who are following at home.