Rich Schlackman reminded me of this year-old quote from Michael Barone (another Hart Research alum, like Peter Feld, Celinda Lake, Thom Riehle, Alan Secrest and me):

So what hath the blogosphere wrought? The left blogosphere has moved the Democrats off to the left, and the right blogosphere has undermined the credibility of the Republicans’ adversaries in Old Media. Both changes help Bush and the Republicans.

2006 will be an interesting test. First, Democratic candidates for federal office need to come up with a message. It won’t be enough for them to say Republicans, Abramoff and the war in Iraq are bad. The less candidates are doing that, the better off they will be. Voters will know that already when it comes time to vote. Instead, candidates will need to clearly demonstrate to voters why electing Democrats will actually improve the voters’ lives.

As for the left blogosphere, it needs to decide whether it will go positive or go negative. If it goes negative, it will hold Democratic candidates to a test of how loudly they bash Republicans (sort of the on-line equivalent of what happened to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco this past weekend). This might make the left feel better, but it won’t add anything to the understanding voters have of Iraq or the corruption in DC. And it won’t do us any good in lean Republican seats and states. But if the left blogosphere goes positive - if the blogs help voters understand that their lives will be better in tangible ways when Democrats are given the chance to cut health care and energy costs, improve public education and, yes, get us out of Iraq sensibly, then maybe we can take back many of the seats we lost in 1994.

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