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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (83665)	11/3/2004 12:09:50 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793919

POWERLINE - We're here early There's bound to be a lot of discussion about the role of bloggers in this election, so permit me to submit my entry. I don't think that bloggers affected the election, but the election certainly affected bloggers (and not just by giving us big heads, as my daughter says). The ability of bloggers to satisfy the demand for information about the election, plus their ability to break a huge story like Rathergate, has made blogging a force (though not an election-affecting one) at least several years before its estimated-time-of arrival. HINDROCKET adds: True, Deacon, but let's not forget that when the Swift Boat Vets were just a ragtag bunch of old guys with a lousy $250,000 in the bank, so that Bob Shrum could plausibly say that Kerry should ignore them--how can they hurt you, they have no money?--the bloggers were among those who alerted voters to the Vets' message and directed traffic to it online. So that, two weeks after the first Vets' ad appeared, hardly anyone had seen it on television, which costs money, but 57% of the population knew about it and many of those had seen it. So give pre-eminent credit to the Vets, yes; but we bloggers were in there too, lending a hand. Posted by deacon at 07:59 AM \| Permalink \| TrackBack (0) The Big Winners There are lots of winners tonight. President Bush, pre-eminently; John Thune; Lisa Murkowski; Mel Martinez, and various others. But one of the big winners has to be Hugh Hewitt. Hugh has been a tower of strength throughout the campaign--not a pollyanna, but a rational voice of conservative confidence. Hugh steadied the troops whenever panic started to set in. He made the issues clear in his best-selling If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat. He rallied pro-Republican forces in various media to work together for the practical end of re-electing President George W. Bush and as many Republican Senators and Congressmen as possible. Why? Because electing Democrats is going to get us killed. In this election cycle, Hugh has taken his place among the foremost figures in American public life. I may be wrong, and I mean no disrespect to Rush Limbaugh or other eminent talk show hosts, but it strikes me that no one has understood the congruence of media--radio, print media and the blogosphere--anywhere near as well as Hugh. No one has built as good a network of radio stations and web sites--like ours--as Hugh. No one has led conservatives into battle with such a clear conscience and such a lucid vision for the future as Hugh. When many of us, including me, doubted, Hugh was the ever-present voice of assurance. After the candidates themselves, and after the Swift Boat Vets, the wonderful returns we've seen tonight are a tribute to the vision of Hugh Hewitt. He is at the very top of the conservative punditocracy. DEACON adds: Let's also remember Hugh's famous battle-cry -- "if it's not close, they can't cheat." Of course, Hugh may not have anticipated the Democrats' response -- try to cheat by redefining the meaning of "close."