Advantage: Blog

KOS is saying that the internet may be the Bush Administration's undoing:

...But something funny happened in 2003. The media landscape shifted. Suddenly, the Internet became a 24/7 oppo research and fact checking tool. The Republicans remain wilfully ignorant of their online would-be allies. The Democratic Party -- outgunned, outmanned, outfinanced, and out-of-power -- was not so myopic. Hardly a day goes by when I don't see a blog-inspired email blasted out by some party functionary, be it the DSCC, DCCC, DNC or affiliated organizations. Those institutions -- the very core of the "Democratic Party Establishment" -- are linking to blogs at increased rates. And the results speak for themselves. For example, my reader-powered "Bush Flip Flops" post on Saturday hit Andrew Sullivan, WaPo and dozens, if not hundreds, of blogs today. In one fell swoop, we turned a GOP talking point against our candidate against theirs, and people outside of the blogosphere "echo chamber" were receptive to the message. I didn't write that flip-flop post. Reader TK did. Yet it'll now be picked up by the party and other media outlets when "balancing" out the RNC spin points. We are on our way to neutralizing what might've been the GOP's strongest line of attack against Kerry. Fact is, this is a brutal time to be in GOoPer politics. The old tricks of the trade don't work anymore. Once upon a time, politicos preyed on the public's short attention span. Say one thing today, pretend you never said that tomorrow knowing no one would call you on it. ("Imminent threat", anyone?) Bloggers like Bilmon started exposing the administration's blatant lies, and surprise! discovered that they had a hungry audience. It was thus inevitable that such blog-provided "context" started making it into news stories (the Billmon expose of the WMD quotes was hugely influential in driving down the administration's credibility on the issue). And Google makes political research as easy as typing in a phrase in a text box. No more hours of microfiche headaches at the public library. The Bush Administration is now in a quandry, never before faced by a political campaign. EVERY WORD IT UTTERS can be instantly fact checked and vetted against previous administration proclamations. And the press, lazy as it is, doesn't even have to do the research. They simply have to read the blogs (and they certainly do). The party can pick the best bits of the day and mold them into spin and talking points. Their overstretched, overworked research departments now have reinforcements of major caliber. For an administration and a party built on ignorance, short-term memory and outright lies ... the harsh glare of this new medium must be excruciating. The Democratic Party is no longer 75 or 100 employees in Washington DC. We are all now adjunct DNCers (whether you like it or not!). When we fact-check Bush, develop new avenues of critique, bring attention to some lonely article in Bismarck, Montpelier, or Dallas (again, see post below), and spread the word about the latest GOP lies and/or outrages, we are helping the party do what it can't do on its own -- reclaim the nation from the ravages of the GOP wingnuts.

This is a very good observation by someone who should know. The question is, will there be an "October Surprise" and/or electronic voting tampering to a such sufficient degree that the above will be moot anyway?

Remember, a majority of the American voting public STILL thinks that there is a direct connection between Iraq and 9-11. What's Kerry got planned that will change that perception???