Well, if Kos is a bit too demure to mention it, I surely am not: On the Friday edition of
CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports, Blitzer did a segment with Carlos Watson, their rising new political reporter and analyst. The segment had other parts to it, but one subsection was about the growing importance of blogs. Along with accompanying graphics that showed the
DailyKos homepage (twice), and Josh Marshall's
Talking Points Memo, was this Blitzer-Watson exchange:
WATSON: Democrats have a new secret weapon.
For a long time, you have heard Democrats complain that Republicans have conservative talk radio, that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly and others have shaped the agenda and gotten people aroused and excited at the base. And finally, in 2004, Democrats have an answer. The answer is what? It's the blogs, the so-called Web logs, where people go online and write information, write commentary, post news stories.
Very interesting study out of George Washington says about 15 to 20 million people are now actively using the Internet and these Web logs in particular, sites like Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo. And what's significant here is that Democrats are using this to shape the agenda, because, remember, lots of Washington reporters read these. They're using these to excite their own base, just like conservative talk show radio does.
We've already seen that they use the Internet to raise money, but also they may turn out voters using this critical weapon.
BLITZER: So you're thinking the these blogs on the Internet, these are sort of liberal-leaning, as talk radio is conservative- leaning?
WATSON: Very much so. The blogs are the Democratic answer to conservative talk radio. The George Washington study says that of the people who they consider online political citizens, not 1 percent, not 2 percent, but 50 percent are considered Democrat. Only 27 percent are considered Republicans.
It doesn't mean that Republicans are not using the Internet. It doesn't mean they are not using blogs, just like there obviously are some liberal talk radio stations. But it means that right now liberals may have found their answer and the answer to conservative talk radio may be these blogs.
So, Kudos to Kos and the Kossacks.
FYI, the link for full transcript can be found here:
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0403/12/wbr.00.html