Kos world: the power, glory, and weakness of the bloggy left.

MARKOS MOULITSAS is describing a frustrating period in his life. It was 2002, George W. Bush was in the White House, and in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks no one in Washington--Democrats included--seemed willing to criticize the president. Moulitsas, a passionate liberal, couldn't believe what he was seeing. "I was driving my co-workers and my wife and my friends crazy, ranting and ranting and ranting about how terrible things were," he says. "There were no liberal voices in the media landscape--there were none."

So to vent his frustrations, to push back a little, and perhaps to become that lonely liberal voice in the media landscape, Moulitsas started blogging. "I felt the need to just get it off my chest," he says. "I needed a voice, and there was a tool, finally, that gave me that ability to share my voice." The tool, of course, was the Internet, and Moulitsas started writing entries for MyDD--the DD stands for "direct democracy"--a groundbreaking political blog started by the Washington-based Democratic strategist Jerome Armstrong. Later, Moulitsas would start his own blog, DailyKos, which would become the biggest and most influential political blog on the left.

Moulitsas is telling his story to a group of students and fans gathered at George Washington University in late March. He is with Armstrong, and together they are, as much as anyone, responsible for creating the most energetic force in Democratic politics today: the left-wing blogosphere. They're hawking a new book, Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics, in which they bash Republican and Democratic party operatives alike, boast of their own political savvy, and argue for the creation of a left-wing "noise machine"--websites, TV programs, talk radio, think tanks--to match the right-wing noise machine that they contend is a key part of Republican electoral success.

Conservatives would undoubtedly be baffled by their analysis of events--Did he really say there were no liberal voices in the media landscape?--but the sense of frustration Moulitsas and Armstrong describe not only appears to be heartfelt but is also, apparently, shared by thousands of people like them. While there is no universally accepted standard of measurement for the readership of blogs, Moulitsas and Armstrong claim that the top 70 liberal blogs attract about 60 million "page views" per month. It's not clear how many people that means, although Moulitsas claims his blog reaches about 1 million people per week. But even if the real figure is significantly lower, and many observers think it is, there is no doubt that DailyKos, like the left-wing blogosphere in general, has lots of readers.

Of course, so do blogs on the right. The difference is that bloggers on the right spend most of their time commenting on the news of the day, while bloggers on the left claim to be building a new political movement, one that is revolutionizing Democratic-party politics. Listen to liberal bloggers talk and it won't be long before they say they are "building communities." "Progressive blogs build communities of activists and generate new political activity online," says a key study of the blogosphere, done for the Washington-based New Democrat Network, an early booster of Moulitsas and Armstrong. "The progressive blogosphere is introducing new actors into the political scene."

It sounds impressive. And there is no doubt that the bloggers are having an impact. But talks with Democratic strategists and political players suggest it may not be the impact that the bloggers want. At this moment, the left-wing blogosphere is not only the most energetic force inside the Democratic party--it is also the most divisive. The question now is whether it will contribute to Democratic victories in midterm elections this November, or instead end up being the Republicans' not-so-secret weapon as they fight off their own problems and try to keep control of Congress.

SLEAZEBAG BLOWHARD AMORAL CHICKENHAWKS

Liberal bloggers often bristle when they are described as "angry." But how else would one describe Moulitsas's broadside, early this year, in which he attacked the War on Terror? The basis for that war, and for the Bush administration's efforts to prevent future terrorist attacks, is not, he wrote, a genuine concern for national security but, rather, conservative cowardice. "Why are conservatives so afraid?" Moulitsas wrote, suggesting that real men wouldn't be scared of another 9/11-style attack. "These blowhards pretend they are macho, even as they piddle on themselves in abject terror from every 'boo' that comes out of Osama bin Laden's mouth."

On another occasion, also early this year, Moulitsas recounted bin Laden's denunciation of Bill Clinton--bin Laden once mentioned "immoral acts committed in the official Oval Office"--and concluded, "Wow, he sounds just like Republicans!" The lesson in that, Moulitsas concluded, was this: "Let's not forget that ultimately, Osama's vision for the Arab world is far more akin to the Right's vision of America ... The reason we hate Islamic fundamentalists is pretty much the same reason we're fighting to take back this country from the Republicans. They are two peas from the same pod, and diametrically opposed to everything we liberals stand for."

Such overheated rhetoric would be fine with most Democrats--even those who would never use such words themselves--if it were aimed only at Republicans. But at the DailyKos, anger can go in all directions. And lately a good bit of it has been hitting Democrats.

Not long ago, for example, a mainstream Democratic strategist named Steve Elmendorf--he worked extensively with former House minority leader Richard Gephardt--was quoted in the Washington Post saying of the liberal blogosphere, "The trick will be to harness their energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist Left." That might not seem a terribly controversial statement, but upon reading it, the activist Left became very, very angry. Calling Elmendorf a "sleazebag amoral lobbyist," Moulitsas threatened to put him out of business. "Here's notice, any Democrat associated with Elmendorf will be outed," Moulitsas wrote. "The netroots can then decide for itself whether it wants to provide some of that energy and money to that candidate."

A threat like that resonates in the Democratic political world, much more so than the anger pointed at Republicans, because Moulitsas and the "netroots" can bring money and buzz to favored candidates--and deny them to non-favored candidates. "The online community collectively can generate $100,000 for a candidate, which is not insignificant," says one Democratic strategist (not Steve Elmendorf) who asked to remain anonymous. "But the paradox is, in order for the community to take sufficient interest in the candidate, the candidate has to do or say something that would make it impossible to win in the district."

The strategist points to the experience of Democrat Paul Hackett in his run for Congress from Ohio's 2nd District. Hackett, a veteran of the Iraq War, loudly called President Bush a "chickenhawk" and, echoing Moulitsas, said "the Republican party has been hijacked by the religious fanatics that, in my opinion, aren't a whole lot different than Osama bin Laden." The left-wing blogosphere cheered wildly and raised thousands of dollars for him. But in the end, Hackett narrowly lost to Republican representative Jean Schmidt, who was widely regarded as a very weak candidate. He later launched an abortive attempt to run for the Senate, but fell victim to his own inexperience and tendency to make extreme statements--the very things the bloggers loved him for.

Another example of the blogosphere's political touch came in March of this year, when the blogs threw their weight behind the candidacy of former Democratic congressman Ciro Rodriguez in his primary race to unseat Texas representative Henry Cuellar, a moderate Democrat running for reelection from Texas's 28th District. Cuellar's sin had been to embrace President Bush at this year's State of the Union address; the blogs endlessly reproduced the photo. Again, the so-called "netroots" activists raised lots of money for the challenger, but Rodriguez, like Hackett, lost--in this case, by 12 percentage points.

Their experience is not unusual. The left-wing blogosphere's record in picking winners is, in a word, dismal. In the last couple of years, Moulitsas has decided to give special support to a total of 13 Democratic congressional candidates. All of them lost. And that, of course, doesn't count John Kerry in 2004.

INSIDE THE TENT

Despite all their defeats, Moulitsas and his allies in the liberal blogosphere are increasingly seen as a force to be reckoned with. Why?

Certainly politicians want the money they can raise. And officeholders aren't in the business of turning down support. But it may be that, more than anything, Democratic politicians fear having the bloggers as enemies; with their energy and their megaphone, they can be the source of endless aggravation.

So increasingly Democratic officeholders and candidates are trying to bring the bloggers inside, to make them feel included--and to blunt their criticisms. For example, in recent months the blogs have been quite angry at House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, feeling that she has been ineffective at fighting back against Republicans and fearful that she will support the regulation of political speech on the Internet. In March, the DailyKos held a poll of its readers asking whether they approved of the job that Pelosi, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, and Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean were doing. The readers loved Dean; 84 percent approved of his performance. They were so-so on Reid, who scored a 50 percent approval rate. But they couldn't stand Pelosi--just 19 percent approved of her performance.

So now Pelosi has begun to "reach out" to the blogs. "We are talking to them more, we are doing conference calls with them," says a source close to Pelosi who asked not to be named. Pelosi learned that the bloggers were not just angry over Internet regulation; they also felt she should have been more supportive of the anti-war statements of Democratic representative John Murtha, and they wanted her to take a leading role in an ethics crusade against Rep. Bob Ney and other Republicans. Pelosi is as partisan as they come, but that wasn't her way of doing things. "I think there was a real misunderstanding of what we do in the House," the source says. The source also notes that Pelosi is personally not terribly Web-savvy; she doesn't surf the blogs herself and relies on staff to tell her what is in them. She wasn't really aware of how much the netroots types resented her.

The conference call--she didn't take part, but her chief of staff did--helped smooth things over and will likely reduce the level of criticism directed at Pelosi. Still, she's got a long way to go to catch up with Reid; his spokesman says Reid has done a half-dozen conference calls with bloggers in the last year. And Reid himself is said to read the blogs and to believe that they are, in the spokesman's words, "an important party outreach of the war room." Reid has also spoken personally with Moulitsas and has agreed to appear at the first DailyKos convention, YearlyKos, this June in Las Vegas. That doesn't mean he won't face criticism, but it probably saves him from some of the savaging directed at other lawmakers.

The most extensive effort to court the bloggers is being made by a Democratic presidential candidate, former Virginia governor Mark Warner, who has hired Jerome Armstrong to handle Internet matters for his campaign. It was a very smart move; if one reads the DailyKos, where the readership is naturally inclined to support Bush-censuring senator Russell Feingold, one finds few negative remarks about Warner. "Politicians have figured this out," says yet another Democratic strategist. "Mark Warner hired Jerome Armstrong, he put him in a job that doesn't affect his message, and there's been a semi-love affair with Warner going on all over the blogosphere ever since. He respected the blogosphere enough to hire one of them." In the coming months, every Democratic candidate will undoubtedly do something similar. They can't afford not to.

NAME THE KING

"Our message is simple," Moulitsas and Armstrong write in Crashing the Gate. "You can get out of the way or work with us. Trying to stop us is a losing proposition." If you're a Democrat, that's probably true. But that doesn't mean that working with Moulitsas and Armstrong is a winning proposition.

The problem with the left-wing blogosphere's approach to politics might not be that they are too far to the left, or too angry, or too eager to be heard. It might be that the combination of all those things makes them self-isolating. Read the DailyKos and MyDD, as well as other top sites like Atrios, AMERICAblog, Crooks and Liars, Democratic Underground, and FireDogLake, and you'll find a lot of angry statements that can be reduced to this: George W. Bush is a warmonger, or a chickenhawk, or a moron, and Democrats are wimps and weasels for not standing up to him. The first point obviously turns off all Republicans, and the second turns off many Democrats. In the end, the bloggers are left mostly with themselves.

And that, in political terms, is a pretty small group. Even if the DailyKos reaches as many people as Moulitsas claims, it's not a huge number when one considers that John Kerry received 60 million votes in 2004 and lost. What the netroots enthusiasts overlook is that the country is so large that its political fringes are big, too--one might create an organization that attracts a million people, or 2 million, and not reach beyond the most intense fraction of the Democratic base.

"You can build your own community on the Net," says Joe Trippi, the former Dean campaign manager who has worked closely with Moulitsas and netroots activists, but it won't necessarily bring you victory. "The Dean campaign was 650,000 people," Trippi says. "You have to have 60 million to be president."

Trippi is a booster of the political uses of the Internet, and he believes it will grow enormously in the future, but he recites an example that illustrates the hazards of such an approach. "If you try to start a rock gardeners' community online, I guarantee you, if you become the biggest authority on rock gardens on the Net, then 100,000 or 200,000 people would sign up. If you are passionate about rock gardening, you can build a rock-gardening community."

That is undoubtedly true, but it simply shows that in a country the size of the United States, you can attract a lot of people to even the most esoteric of ideas. And if you attract 200,000 members of the rock-gardening community, what have you got? A significant slice of the American population? Or a bunch of rock-gardening enthusiasts? By the same light, even if 1 million people read the DailyKos each week, they're probably the same 1 million who respond to ads from MoveOn.org and listen to Air America radio. That explains a lot about how the DailyKos can seem so successful and at the same time be so limited.

Not long ago, a political scientist referred to Moulitsas as a "kingmaker." To which another blogger, Mickey Kaus, replied, "Oh yeah? Name the king." The fact is, there is no such king--nor even a member of Congress. Now, surely that will change. Surely in the future at least one Moulitsas-supported candidate will win a campaign. But it will take much more than one victory to make not just Moulitsas, but the entire left-wing blogosphere, into kingmakers. There might not be enough rock gardeners out there to make it happen.