This is an excellent article from the editor-in-chief of The Conservative Voice and my good friend Nathan Tabor. The subject is something that I've talked about for years.

Obama Beating Clinton and McCain on the Internet
by Nathan Tabor

Say what you will about the left-wing bloggers and ultra-liberal Internet news and commentary websites, they've proven themselves a political power to be reckoned with. And Democrat politicians with dreams of sitting in the Oval Office have known it for quite sometime.

For example, while the Democrat Party presidential hopefuls were building up their campaign finance war chests and creating exploratory committees, close to 1,000 liberal-left bloggers assembled in Las Vegas "to gear up for the 2008 presidential race." The big news story was that several potential Democrat candidates were hobnobbing with the bloggers, as well.

Basically, these Democrat presidential hopefuls were busy kissing up to their "new media" base while receiving feedback regarding their political positions on key issues viewed as important to these Internet "pajama journalists." During the 2004 presidential race, the Dems realized the significance of the Internet in getting out their candidates' messages while shoveling millions of dollars in campaign contributions online into their coffers.

The DailyKos -- said to be the most visited political web site on the Internet -- became a big supporter of Howard Dean in the last presidential cycle simply because he was willing to speak out against the Iraq war. It was largely through Dean's support on the Internet that he became -- for a while anyway -- the Democrat Party front-runner in the 2004 primary season. By autumn 2003 alone, he had raised $40 million with help from online advocates.

The Las Vegas weekend extravaganza in 2006 was the brainchild of super-blogger Markos Moulitsas, the founder and head honcho of the far-left DailyKos.com. Democrats who attended the liberal-left jamboree included former Virginia Governor Mark Warner, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, and former NATO commander General Wesley Clark. At the time all of them were considered serious Democrat presidential contenders.

But as fate would have it, Warner, Clark, Vilsack, Richardson and a whole slew of others eventually found themselves out of the running. As a result, for the Democrat Party it's become a contest between Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL), while the GOP's Senator John McCain sowed up his victory surprisingly quickly and is now positioning himself to take on either Obama or Clinton.

However, if the internet is any type of serious gauge for political success, then Sen. Barack Obama will be the next president of the US. And John McCain is destined to finish out-of-the-money.

For example, according to alexa.com, an organization that monitors the traffic flow for web sites throughout the Internet, JohnMcCain.com is ranked 24,291, HillaryClinton.com is ranked 9,848, and BarackObama.com is ranked 2528. That's right. Out of the millions of web sites on the worldwide web, Obama's virtual "campaign headquarters" ranks 2,528.

When it comes to blogger links on political websites, technorati.com, another organization that monitors Internet traffic patterns, shows that McCain's campaign web site has 12,863 blogger links, while Hillary's has 31,100 blogger links. But once again, Obama's numbers dwarf Clinton's and McCain's, with 37,295 blogger links.

Several observations can be made from these numbers: Obama is beating Clinton on the internet; while both Obama and Clinton are crushing Republican John McCain on the worldwide web.

According to political strategists who monitor the Internet, when you match these "virtual world" numbers up to fundraising figures in the real world, one sees a similar pattern: Obama first, Clinton second, and McCain third.

There's plenty of blame to go around for conservatives who have allowed this situation to occur. While conservative bloggers and Internet news websites present ideas and solutions to problems, those on the left denigrate, smear and ridicule those with whom they disagree. Yet, most Democrat officeholders on the national level know that these radicals on the net are an important part of acquiring more power. There is a "synthesis" of convenience between far-left bloggers and politicians.

Meanwhile, between conservative politicians and the conservative bloggers and commentators there is a major problem. The problem, for the most part, is there's no relationship to speak of. There's no building of relationships, no cooperation, and no coordination.

I believe it's because a significant number of Republican officeholders in Washington turned their backs on their conservative roots as well as the conservative movement in general.

Had some of the folks from the conservative-right blogosphere put together a convention, does anyone believe ot would be successful in bringing conservative politicians and conservative bloggers together? Has there been any such convention of conservative or Republican bloggers? Would Sen. John McCain attend such a conference?

At first, it appeared that the loss of the House of Representatives and the Senate might help to bring the GOP back to its Ronald Reagan roots. Clearly, that didn't happen. It may take a loss this November for the GOP to start creating a sincere relationship with conservative bloggers.

Folks, unless your fingers start hitting the keys and you start opening up your wallet get ready for 4 years of a liberal Democrat president.

Article reprinted with the permission of the author. Visit The Conservative Voice web site today.

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