Could the first Democratic Primary in 2008 actually take place in 2007? And take place everywhere and nowhere? Circle on your calendar and watch. That's the date the lefty blogosphere (and I mean the full-time bloggers, not we HuffPo dilettantes) have designated "Blogosphere Day," wherein they turn their collective largesse on a Democratic candidate.
Last year they raised tens of thousands of dollars for obscure Dem Ginny Schrader. This year Paul Hackett, running in a presumably hopeless special election in Ohio took in hundreds of thousands, thanks to Blogosphere Day. As I asked in Tuesday's DC Examiner, if the netroots can flex that kind of muscle in an off-off-year election, what sort of bucks can they move in a big race?
But here's a caveat for all the Dem pols who fancy themselves the next Howard Dean or John McCain: the blogoticians want to be viewed as something more than the next great fundraising tool.
So what's a pol to do? The short answer is treat the bloggers like more than an online ATM machine and separately don't shrink from being a Dem. What these folks want most is strong leadership that's going to draw bright lines with the Republicans.
The pol who does those things will get the lion's share of the online bucks on 7/19/7 -- and emerge as the Dem front-runner (or at least as the main challenger to Hillary).
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