Interesting bit over at Politico, maybe yet more signs that the wind has shifted:
“It’s clear to us that Barack Obama has won the Drudge Primary, and it’s one of the most important primaries in this process,” conceded a senior aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who also acknowledged that Drudge’s treatment of Obama could make the Illinois senator more electable in November.
Now, as Obama and Sen. John McCain look toward the fall, Drudge has emerged unexpectedly as more of a threat to the Republican than to the Democrat. This, combined with the rise of left-leaning sites such as TalkingPointsMemo.com and HuffingtonPost.com — both of which have proved effective in promoting and amplifying a Democratic message — reflects a major shift from the last two presidential elections, a matter of open alarm to Republican strategists and surprised satisfaction to Democrats.
“The MSM is already sending love letters to Obama,” said a GOP operative who worked for the Bush-Cheney reelection. “That’s something that has traditionally been countered on the Republican side with talk radio, blogs to a lesser degree but especially Drudge. If those tools are not part of the Republican vehicle for message delivery, that’s crippling.”
Well, right-leaning blogs and talk radio will still do their things; but righty blogs don’t seem to have the same organizational principles as lefty sites like Kos - which is to say that many lefty sites are specifically geared towards activism, while righty sites are more about spreading and amplifying the message.
And talk radio, Rush and the like, will still be a factor - but less of one. Talk radio is so ’90s, isn’t it? Appeals to a certain aging demographic that might have already seen its high-water mark.
Is Drudge as important as he/it was? Hard to say. Still one of the first sites I check every day, though if it went south tomorrow, all the stories are still out there; there are other aggregators, though as Politico notes, “he has an uncanny ability to drive the national conversation with what he chooses to highlight on his site.”
Everything seems in play this year, doesn’t it?
