The Awesome Power Of Kossacks…Isn’t Quite So Awesome

06 Jul, 2006 by John Hawkins

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Don Surber is pointing out that despite the fact that bloggers are being hired as consultants and blogs are being touted as “kingmaker(s),” they’re not really having as big of an impact as you might imagine.

From Surber:

“As fund-raisers, the blogs are pretty much a bust. Their top three fundraisers are $79K out of the $776K Lamont has raised, $39K out of the $846K Tester has raised, and $14K out of the $547K Webb has raised.”

There’s has been a lot of talk about Kos’s big losing streak and to the best of my knowledge, he has never pushed a candidate who has beaten a Republican. But even if he did, looking at those numbers, what would make anyone think Kos deserved the credit for the win?

If, let’s say, Tester managed to knock off Conrad Burns, why should the netroots get credit for that when they’ve only delivered about 4.6% of his funding?

If, let’s say, I can convince a few big bloggers to get together and endorse George Allen over Webb or Burns over Tester, and our guys win, does that mean the righties get to stomp around and talk about how powerful we are while Republican candidates throw us $50,000 dollar parties? Please….

The blogosphere makes a difference, we really do, and it is better for a politician to have us on his side than against him. But are we kingmakers? Do politicians need to kiss our rings? No way.