Angry Bear Traffic Tops 100,000 Per Day

That, of course, is only on a pro forma basis. Ezra Klein at NotGeniuses has an interesting theory:

What I’m trying to get is that in terms of sheer effect, 5 blog readers, due to how specialized and specific the medium is, equal thousands of Washington Post readers in net effect in the political world. You can bet your ass every campaign right now is keeping a watch on the blogs and the CW that emerges from them, and that makes blogs more powerful than they seem.

I agree entirely that blog readers are a self-selected group of political junkies. And I guess any group that consists disproportionately of political junkies probably also includes a few political bigwigs or freinds thereof. So I don’t dismiss Klein’s theory entirely, but I do often feel that blogs are primarily one giant echo chamber, daily ministrations to the choir.

So, assuming my comments work today, some questions for blog readers:

1. Has reading blogs changed any of your views? If you can pin it down, which blog? If you remember the post, cite and/or explain.
2. Has blog reading encouraged you to donate time or money that you otherwise would not have? If so, to what and why?
3. Even if you view each individual blog as insignificant, do they, taken as a whole, have an effect on politics?

If the comments are not working, then send me an email and I’ll write a post or two giving the highlights. My guess at the moment is that #2 is where the best hope for blogs lie.

AB

P.S. Try to keep references to anyone named “Lott” to a minimum.