Kicking the conventional wisdom about the left and right blogosphere

The Nutroots' favorite candidate, Chris Dodd, bowed out last night and Obama, a guy they were pretty cool to, ran the board:

A progressive blog-reading audience of roughly 100,000 people has alternately enthralled and frightened the Democratic party for a couple of years now. Obama either saw that foolishness for what it was, or was sufficiently committed to his principles that he refused to pander. If he paid a price at the Iowa caucuses for this “gamble,” it was one he could afford. More likely, he paid no price, as the progressive blogosphere is deeply unrepresentative of the Democratic party rank and file. We learned that much last night.

Special note to Democratic politicians: If you don't feel like it, you don't have to keep attending the Yearly Kos. Your time would probably be better spent raising money or kissing babies.

Meanwhile, last night's GOP winner also wasn't the first choice of any of the blogs I regularly read. Yet I would credit the underrated and supposedly powerless right-wing blogosphere with helping to keep the Thompson campaign afloat.

I'm not sure how much I believe there's anything to that, but it's something to think about.