Big names in blogs.

March 26, 2008 12:42 PM

What are the biggest/most influential political blogs on the Internet?

I'm putting together a list of the most influential political bloggers for a project I'm working on. I want to get a wide range of political viewpoints; people like Josh Marshall and Markos Moulitsas on the left, Glenn Reynolds and Michelle Malkin on the right. They don't necessarily need to be as prominent as those examples, but I am looking for blogs with a sizable readership.

You don't need to agree with the editorial viewpoint of the blogs in question--in fact, part of the project will involve analyzing predictions made by the various bloggers, so quality is not necessarily an issue. Someone who's constantly wrong about everything but read by thousands of people is better than a brilliantly insightful blog that only gets a few dozen hits a day.

posted by EarBucket to society & culture (21 comments total)

The The Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem is probably your best guide.
posted by holgate at 12:47 PM on March 26, 2008

I'd throw Politico into the list.
posted by DrGirlfriend at 12:52 PM on March 26, 2008

American Citizen Soldier
posted by Sassyfras at 12:59 PM on March 26, 2008

I don't know if I'd really classify it as a blog, but The Note at ABCnews.com is supposedly incredibly influential inside the beltway.
posted by slogger at 1:05 PM on March 26, 2008

American politics, right? Or rather, American based blogs even if they comment on international issues?

Anyway, I think the politics section of the Huffington Post has a sizeable audience.
posted by lucia__is__dada at 1:19 PM on March 26, 2008

On the left:
- Political Animal (aka Kevin Drum)
- Daily kos
- Teagan Goddard's Political Wire
- Marc Ambinder
- Wonkette (sort of)

On the right:
- Red State
- Powerline
- Instapundit (more libertarian than conservative really)
posted by dyslexictraveler at 1:26 PM on March 26, 2008

Atrios has a huge following on the left.

(And Instapundit is an authoritarian conservative who only pretends to be a libertarian.)
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:25 PM on March 26, 2008

NRO Corner (group)
Town Hall (group)
Ed Morrissey (used to be here)
Steve Green
The Jawa Report (group)
Big Lizards (group)
posted by Class Goat at 2:42 PM on March 26, 2008

Talking Points Memo is the blog that had a major hand in piecing together the US Attorney firings scandal, and is consistently on the forefront or breaking political newa.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 2:44 PM on March 26, 2008

Oops. I missed that you had already mentioned Marshall. Nevermind.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 2:44 PM on March 26, 2008

Matt Yglesias
posted by Class Goat at 2:54 PM on March 26, 2008

How about the Huffington Post ?
posted by hal_c_on at 2:57 PM on March 26, 2008

andrewsullivan is worth a look. Not least because being a gay, HIV positive, conservative, Catholic Englishman writing about US politics gives you a certain viewpoint.
posted by rhymer at 3:17 PM on March 26, 2008

No one who is conservative thinks that Sully is conservative. These days he's off in lala land. But he does have a big readership, so he should be on the list.
posted by Class Goat at 3:27 PM on March 26, 2008

The Atlantic has actually done a pretty good job of getting a stable of bloggers who don't represent a political monoculture. Not only do they have Yglesias (left) and Sully (crazy), they also have Megan McCardle, who is basically libertarian.
posted by Class Goat at 3:31 PM on March 26, 2008

The Observer recently published their list of "The world's 50 most powerful blogs." The list spans politics, art, culture, tech, personal, humor, etc.

They made Huffington Post #1, but, sadly, Kos, Wonkette, and a host of other politicos didn't even make the list.

Oh, but don't worry, perezhilton, TMZ, and icanhascheezburger round out the top 15, proving that the most powerful forces in American public discourse today are celebrities and cats with poor grammar.
posted by Prevailing Southwest at 3:53 PM on March 26, 2008

How about Crooks And Liars?
posted by juicedigital at 4:32 PM on March 26, 2008

Firedoglake
posted by sneakin at 6:19 PM on March 26, 2008

Seconding Crooks and Liars.
posted by amyms at 8:15 PM on March 26, 2008

TalkLeft, the Left Coaster, Taegan Goddard's Political Wire, No Quarter, Taylor Marsh, myDD, Bartcop, Feministing, Feministe. Glen Greenwald @ Salon.

</Clintonista> :)

As far as the age of them, I really think myDD is the one that's been around the longest, that and Liberal Oasis, Bartcop. AFAIK it all started with the much-missed Media Whores Online. Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos, myDD have changed a lot from being simple blogs to more.. community driven sites. Kevin Drum @ Wash Monthly used to run his own site, Calpundit, back in the 2004 cycle. I think Atrios has always been doing his own thing. Kos was a myDD commenter before he started his own blog, and dKos used to be just a regular blog. Also influential and much-missed: dKos alumni Billmon (the Whiskey Bar - you can find the archives - I wish he still wrote) and Steve Gilliard (RIP). Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft is also a dKos alum, so to speak. Josh Trevino aka Tacitus ran his own blog and was a RedState founder but has since left.. he was a pretty prominent voice in the blogosphere back when it really got going 4-5 years ago, commented on Kos too.. the opposing sides used to talk to each other more, I guess.

I've heard a lot of early political blog posters frequented Slate's politics forums and Salon tabletalk back in the early 00s but that's just second hand information. As far as political campaigns I'm fairly certain Howard Dean was the first to really leverage the blogosphere, starting from his own Blog for America in 2003-2004, many people migrated from there to Kos and other blogs and Dean raised a ton of money from his website (Joe Trippi was running strategy and he's a big blog reader).

Also see The Washington Note by Steve Clemons, War and Piece by Laura Rozen, and Garance Franke-Ruta (Tapped) and Ezra Klein at American Prospect.
posted by citron at 10:33 PM on March 26, 2008

The Note used to be important. It was founded by the snarky, pompous, shallow and staggeringly influential Mark Halperin. He has now moved on to Time where he runs a blog called The Page, which now has the juice the Note used to have.

Ambinder is my pick for reasoned, informative commentary, but I'm not sure how big a readership he has.

Chuck Todd and the gang at NBC run First Read, which is also very useful.

Lynn Sweet is the acknowleged Obama expert/tormentor.

These are influential in the sense that other reporters read them, not so much that they reach lots of actual voters in themselves.
posted by CunningLinguist at 12:26 PM on March 27, 2008