“Blogs are attracted to shiny objects, and Colbert is nothing if not a shiny object,” Beutler said. “Even serious-minded bloggers can’t resist.”

I wish I had said “bloggers are attracted,” considering that blogs themselves are inanimate objects (heck, they’re not even objects) and incapable of being attracted to things without the help of a blogger… but I think the point gets across. Meantime, kudos to Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin for running my specific numbers:

[A]fter Colbert announced Oct. 16, he was mentioned on 0.09 percent of all blog posts (not just political blogs). Hillary Clinton had the same level of mentions during the same period, and Rudy Giuliani was mentioned on 0.08 percent of blogs.

In terms of raw numbers, Beutler said, “In the three-day period surrounding his announcement (day of, morning after, and one more day) 748 different blog posts mentioned the phrases ‘Stephen Colbert’ and ‘president.’ If you run the same search for ‘Hillary Clinton’ without ‘president’ — since we assume any post about her is also about her candidacy — we get 727 posts. [So] even though our search string for Hillary was less stringent he actually scored more mentions than she did.”

The figures above are probably more in-depth than the average reader of gossip columns can handle, but then again this is Washington, where even the gossip is a bit wonkish (Drew Carey visits Reason Magazine!).

But for the purposes of Blog P.I., it’s not quite enough. The numbers above actually come from two different sources — the percentages come from the Icerocket Trend Tool and the raw numbers from Google Blogsearch — so no mathematical formula should feature both numbers. Keeping in mind that all of these tools are flawed, it’s my belief that when they show the same pattern, you’re onto something. And this is it:

Here are the Google figures for Colbert, Hillary and Rudy. And the figures for comparing Colbert’s announcement to the (more) legitimate candidates come from this February post.

I think that takes care of everything. What does this say about Colbert? Certainly, he is as relevant — and his satire as cutting — as when his late-night show spun off from Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” nearly two years ago. That’s pretty impressive, considering the essential gimmickiness of the program.

But will he remain as relevant past 2008, with President Bush out of office? That is, of course, assuming he doesn’t follow President Bush into office.

P.S. Not just the Facebook group that’s more popular than the Obama one that inspired it, but Stephen Colbert has more support (at least according to Rasmussen’s robots) than Ron Paul? Is Colbert Nation really fiercer than the “Google Ron Paul” set? I have my doubts, but the poll is amusing.

(FWIW: I’m with Fred.)

On first read, I didn’t quite see what the problem was, but after reading through all the posts available at Memeorandum, I can see what they’re getting at — though the reaction is, to no great surprise, overly negative. The most controversial passage seems to be this one:

Few of these bloggers shut down their “independent” sites after signing on with campaigns, and while most disclosed their campaign ties on their blogs, some — like Patrick Hynes of Ankle Biting Pundits — did so only after being criticized by fellow bloggers.

Among the fiercest detractors are friends of bloggers who worked for campaigns and who did cease their independent blogging, but are not exempted from the mild criticism offered in the story. A good example is Amanda Marcotte, who took over Pandagon from Jesse Taylor when he signed up with Gov.-elect Ted Strickland:

Daniel Glover and Mike Essl are hinting around that a lot of bloggers have undisclosed conflicts of interest and forget to include an extremely important disclaimer about some of the bloggers on their handy little chart here. You know, the part where they clearly state that bloggers like Peter Daou and our own Jesse Taylor have no conflict of interest at all. Because they quit their blogs before starting their campaign jobs so there was no conflict of interest.

Here’s Scott Shields, in the comments at MyDD:

It’s pretty clear … that I was on payroll with the Menendez campaign. I haven’t looked at all of the other examples, but I’d be willing to bet that it was pretty much the same story all around — that full disclosure was offered. What, I wonder, is Glover’s point? That bloggers are “for sale”? … I consider myself an activist first and an ideologically-driven citizen journalist second. That’s just how I’ve defined my role. It’s something I think I’ve been pretty clear about. If I believe in a candidate, I’m willing to work for that candidate. If I don’t, then I’d take a pass. At no point would I ever fail to disclose my work for that candidate. [Note: The original quote here was Jonathan Singer's which is quoted below. This has been replaced with a quote from Shields' comment. My apologies to both.]

Conservatives who weighed in had a similar reaction, though they took it less personally. Alabama Liberation Front responded with snark:

I can be bought. I just want to make that clear. If everybody else is going to discard their bloggerly principles and go a-whorin’ after political money, I don’t want to be the last blogger virgin, sitting around drinking lemonade and waiting for the phone to ring.

And a contributor to Done With Mirrors was skeptical about the apparent premise of the op-ed:

Of course I would have a problem with a politician directly paying a journalist employed as such, disclosed or not. (I don’t want politicians paying off staff writers for major newspapers, for example.) But what these bloggers are being paid for isn’t journalism, not in my book. It isn’t even “citizenjournalism,” about which term and which concept, as they are used in the blogosphere generally, I harbor deep skepticism.

All together now: Tough crowd.

The only blogger explicitly criticized is Hynes, a Republican, yet most of the outcry comes from the left. Why? Guilt by association. That’s why I think that the article might not have received such harsh criticism had it not been paired with a chart placing bloggers’ quotes about their employers next to information about what they were paid.

But the chart was a production of the New York Times, with the numbers borrowed from Glover’s original piece and the quotes attributed to each blogger taken from… well, it doesn’t say. The chart seems to imply that there’s something shocking about the fact that a blogger paid to work for a campaign would have positive things to say about their candidate. But do these quotes come from the bloggers’ personal websites? From the official campaign blogs? Were they written before or after being hired? These are important things to know before passing judgment on the propriety of the statements quoted — but the insinuation that these comments are insincere is highly misleading.

Should Glover have refused the op-ed on this basis? Maybe, but I am quite sure I would not have. Perhaps another sentence or two noting a few of the subtleties that the bloggers are pointing out now might have quelled some of the outrage — but then again, perhaps not. Take for instance the ever-subtle Atrios, who carps:

I guess the blogger ethics standard is now if you’ve ever run a blog there’s something unseemly about actually working with politicains [sic], even years later.

No, that’s not what the article says. Not even close. Atrios’ response manages to be even more overbroad than the article quoted. I respect and like Jonathan Singer, who wrote the main response at MyDD today, but he too goes overboard (albeit with more wit and humor):

While Glover does note that some of “these bloggers shut down their ‘independent’ sites after signing on with campaigns” or that “most disclosed their campaign ties on their blogs”, he fails to mention the fact that a number of the bloggers, like Jerome, largely recused themselves of writing during the course of their employment, farming out writing responsibilities to other bloggers like Chris, Matt and myself.

The reason why may shock you: Chris, Matt and Jonathan do not exist, despite any previous claims. He got me. We’re all the same person. I (Jerome) have been writing under these aliases the entire time I have been working on other campaigns. I also used to write under the name of Scott Shields until I got hired under that pseudonym by another campaign. Thought you met Matt, Chris or Jonathan at Yearly Kos or some other event? Most likely you met one of the young fellows I paid to play those roles. They’re just out of work, dime a dozen actors from Los Angeles. Anyone could have played them.

At the very least, this mini-kerfuffle highlights just how difficult it can be to generalize about the blogosphere within the constraints of the short op-ed format. And I should know — earlier in the year I wrote a newspaper op-ed (though for the Washington Examiner, nothing like the New York Times) and I was roundly trashed by some of the same bloggers — although I am envious of “Roger Ailes”‘ “K. Douchebag Glover” nickname; I got nothing quite so clever.

So I can certainly sympathize. Looking back on my piece (which unfortunately is no longer online), I got some things right and some things wrong. But if I could have linked to blog posts backing up my arguments, it would have been less controversial. I would imagine the same is true here. Glover’s experience today certainly reconfirms my conclusion that newspaper op-ed columns, with their limited space and lack of hypertext, are almost invariably a terrible place to comment on the blogosphere.

This seems to be what Glover implies in a comment posted at his own blog, in response to an angry reader:

The Times wanted me to focus on people who had their own blogs and then went to work for campaigns. My original piece also included people who were paid to blog for campaigns or advise them on Internet strategy but who weren’t independent bloggers beforehand. …

Furthermore, my article neither states nor implies that anyone, candidates or bloggers, is “corrupt” because of ties between the two. I don’t believe that. Candidates have the right to pay for Internet advice, blogging, etc., and bloggers have a right to be paid for that work — or to do it on a volunteer basis, if they so choose.

I get that. But that wasn’t in the article. And with bloggers on a hair-trigger response to any criticism whatsoever, the NYT piece should have said exactly that. Glover and Essl didn’t say (or mean) what many bloggers believe they said — but they didn’t not say it, either.

P.S. Don’t miss the comments, where Danny Glover adds a bit more detail about how the article came together — and adds the important fact (you would think) that Essl’s contribution was limited to designing the chart itself.

At the risk of turning every other other post at Blog P.I. into an update of what former colleagues are up to, I’ll attempt to turn your attention now to the launch of a new site by Danny Glover (just promoted to editor of Tech Daily, coincidentally) which happens to have been designed by a former colleague from my present job, Kris Meister. They say Washington is a small town, and it’s true, assuming you mean just the NW quadrant.

In any case, the site is called Air Congress, and it’s the logical progression of Danny’s work keeping track of congressional (and other professional) blogs at Beltway Blogroll. He writes in the Air Congress inaugural post:

Much of the content here will come directly from lawmakers themselves — the video clips they post from floor debate, the podcasts they create on various topics and more as today’s high-tech innovations take root in government.

The site also will highlight audio and video content about federal policy from other sources, including the executive branch, trade associations, advocacy groups, government watchdogs, journalists and bloggers. Plus there are plans for original AirCongress content.

The last bit is reassuring, because the biggest risk in Air Congress’ strategy is that the audio-visual content emanating from Capitol Hill is often excruciatingly dull. As someone who subscribes to to every political podcast I can find, from Judd Gregg to Xavier Becerra and Arnold Schwarzenegger to Dave Freudenthal — but rarely listen to any one of them — I think I speak with some authority.

That’s why I figure Air Congress’ best bet for success is not so much in being a collector of legislative podcasts (though if thorougly indexed, that could be useful) but rather in acting as a guide to the best, worst and most noteworthy among them. As Chris Anderson would say, we need a better filter.

To that end, I have a vague sense that such a project would benefit mightily from an open rating and tagging system, elements of which are already in use at YouTube and Daily Kos, respectively. Short of that, only the most dedicated political junkie could pull off such a feat — but then again, there’s every reason to think Danny is just that political junkie.

He’s in a crowded field, facing fellow Southerners Adam Putnam and Marsha Blackburn plus Southern Californian Dan Lungren, and because these things are won and lost behind closed doors (perhaps even doors slightly ajar, if one speaks softly enough) this online whistle-stop is little more than a stunt.

But so far it’s earned cautious praise from Robert Bluey at Human Events and gleeful derision from Alex Pareene at Wonkette — in other words, it’s working like a charm.

And how long has the congressman been a member of YouTube?

Six months is none too shabby — that’s almost half the billion-dollar startup’s young life. (I’ve never met Kingston aide David All, but he must be worth the $6,500 Kingston let Mike Bouchard pay him in September.) Then again, as Senator-elect James Webb’s Facebook wrangler discovered last month, when it comes to social networking, politicians have to be warier of who links to them than most:

Whoops! Borat might be able to get away with saying things like that, but for Rep. Kingston, it may be time to change those account settings.

P.S. Here’s Abbi Tatton from CNN’s “Situation Room” yesterday afternoon, on the YouTube video:

It went to all his Republican colleagues. His office said it’s easier to get people’s attention with a video than a piece of paper.

So apparently it’s not just for the blogger crowd. It’s difficult to see why this would have any noticeable effect on his fellow MoCs — to say nothing of his promises to seek out advice from Hollywood conservatives like Ben Stein and David Horowitz — although one thing it certainly does is put the same visual media in front of both members and bloggers. Whatever problems the message has, it must be worth something to try putting the two camps on the same (web) page.

Last week Danny Glover, my former colleague at the National Journal Group, went through the FEC reports of candidates for federal office to report just how much their campaigns were paying the bloggers and new media coordinators in their employ.

It was a fascinating and useful article, though it could have used a sidebar or two breaking out the details. Who is the best-paid campaign blogger? Which campaign spent the most? What would these bloggers make if prorated to a yearly salary?

So with the help of Olly Ruff, my capable and mathematically-inclined co-blogger, we’ve done just that. And then some. Before we get started, some disclaimers are in order:

By “prorated salary,” we mean that monthly (approximate) salaries have been prorated to annual salaries; these figures are not meant to indicate the blogger actually made or will make this amount. Jon Henke of QandO, for example, has only been with the Allen campaign for a few months. Likewise, “lump sumps” refer to larger payments made at irregular times. They could be one-off or recurring. These figures are not meant to indicate an annual rate. Unless otherwise noted, numbers are from 2006.

It is also worth remembering that some of these advisers are bloggers, some are more senior advisers, and some are both. Additionally, some advisers may keep other jobs — Daou still does The Daou Report for Salon, but no longer writes commentary there; David All is merely on loan from a similar position with Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA).

Like a poll, this is a snapshot and only a snapshot. We didn’t have the time or resources to go back and look at how long each blogger had actually worked for a given candidate, so the prorated numbers should be taken with a dash of Morton’s. All numbers come from Glover’s piece, and if we haven’t made it clear already, some are approximate.

All right, that should do. Here’s how we’ve broken it down:

   Candidates
a. By prorated salary paid (Democrats)
b. By prorated salary paid (Republicans)
c. By prorated salary paid (combined)
d. By lump sum (Democrats)
e. By lump sum (Republicans)
f. By lump sum (combined)

   Bloggers/Advisers
g. By prorated salary (Democrats)
h. By prorated salary (Republicans)
i. By prorated salary (combined)
j. By lump sum (Democrats)
k. By lump sum (Republicans)
l. By lump sum (combined)

After the charts, we’ll share a few notes and observations. Just as you can click on the links above to take you to a specific chart, you can also click here to read those. Let’s go:

a. By candidate, prorated salary paid (Democrats)


Candidate	Campaign	Blogger/Adviser	Payment/Expenditure
Sen. Hillary Clinton	NY SEN incumbent	Jesse Berney; Peter Daou1	$15,600; $60,000 (by way of FOH/HILLPAC)
Sen. Debbie Stabenow	MI SEN incumbent	Laura Packard, Aaron Hofman	$44,400; $26,400
Rep. Jan Schakowsky	IL 09 incumbent	Alex Armour	$38,400
Treas. Bob Casey	PA SEN Rick Santorum	Jon Jones	$33,600
State Sen. Jon Tester	MT SEN Conrad Burns	Andrew Tweeten	$31,200
Sen. Robert Menendez	NJ SEN incumbent	Scott Shields	$34,860 (up from starting $30,744)
Rep. Ted Strickland	OH GOV open	Jesse Taylor	$24,600
Atty Larry Grant	ID 01 open	Julie Fanselow	$15,600
Atty Bill Winter	CO 06 Tom Tancredo	Aaron Silverstein	$10,200

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b. By candidate, prorated salary paid (Republicans)



Candidate	Campaign	Blogger/Adviser	Payment/Expenditure
Sen. Rick Santorum	PA SEN incumbent	Mindy Finn; Luke Bernstein	$52,800; $51,600
Rep. Mark Kennedy	MN SEN open	Michael Brodkorb	$55,200
Sen. George Allen	VA SEN incumbent	Jon Henke2	$27,600
Sen. Bill Frist	WH’08 (prospective)	Stephen Smith	$22,400 (by way of VOLPAC)

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c. By candidate, prorated salary paid (combined)



Candidate	Campaign	Blogger/Adviser	Payment/Expenditure
Sen. Rick Santorum	PA SEN incumbent	Mindy Finn; Luke Bernstein	$52,800; $51,600
Sen. Hillary Clinton	NY SEN incumbent	Jesse Berney; Peter Daou	$15,600; $60,000 (by way of FOH/HILLPAC)
Sen. Debbie Stabenow	MI SEN incumbent	Laura Packard, Aaron Hofman	$44,400; $26,400
Rep. Mark Kennedy	MN SEN open	Michael Brodkorb	$55,200
Rep. Jan Schakowsky	IL 09 incumbent	Alex Armour	$38,400
Sen. Robert Menendez	NJ SEN incumbent	Scott Shields	$34,860 (up from starting $30,744)
Treas. Bob Casey	PA SEN Rick Santorum	Jon Jones	$33,600
State Sen. Jon Tester	MT SEN Conrad Burns	Andrew Tweeten	$31,200
Sen. George Allen	VA SEN incumbent	Jon Henke	$27,600
Rep. Ted Strickland	OH GOV open	Jesse Taylor	$24,600
Sen. Bill Frist	WH’08 prospective	Stephen Smith	$22,400 (by way of VOLPAC)
Atty Larry Grant	ID 01 open	Julie Fanselow	$15,600
Atty Bill Winter	CO 06 Tom Tancredo	Aaron Silverstein	$10,200

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d. By candidate, lump sum (Democrats)

Candidate	Campaign	Blogger/Adviser	Payment/Expenditure
Rep. Sherrod Brown	OH SEN Mike DeWine	Jerome Armstrong; Tim Tagaris	$100,000 (2005-2006); $17,000 (2005)
Ex-Navy Sec. James Webb	VA SEN George Allen	Abraham (Josh) Chernila; Lowell Feld	$7,700; $3,600
Sen. Jon Corzine	NJ GOV ‘05 won	Jerome Armstrong; Matt Stoller	$39,000; $31,000
Ex-Gov. Mark Warner	WH’08 withdrawn	Jerome Armstrong	$65,000
Sen. Joe Lieberman	CT SEN incumbent	Dan Gerstein	$21,000 (Sept 2006)
Cable exec Ned Lamont	CT SEN Joe Lieberman	Tim Tagaris	$21,000 (Jul-Sept 2006)

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e. By candidate, lump sum (Republicans)


Candidate	Campaign	Blogger/Adviser	Payment/Expenditure
Sen. John McCain	WH’08 prospective	Patrick Hynes	$31,500
Sheriff Mike Bouchard	MI SEN Debbie Stabenow	David All	$6,468 (Sept 2006)

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f. By candidate, lump sum (combined)



Candidate	Campaign	Blogger/Adviser	Payment/Expenditure
Rep. Sherrod Brown	OH SEN Mike DeWine	Jerome Armstrong; Tim Tagaris	$100,000 (2005-2006); $17,000 (2005)
Ex-Navy Sec. James Webb	VA SEN George Allen	Abraham (Josh) Chernila; Lowell Feld	$77,00; $3,600
Sen. Jon Corzine	NJ GOV ‘05 won	Jerome Armstrong; Matt Stoller	$39,000; $31,000
Ex-Gov. Mark Warner	WH’08 withdrawn	Jerome Armstrong	$65,000
Sen. John McCain	WH’08 prospective	Patrick Hynes	$31,500
Sen. Joe Lieberman	CT SEN incumbent	Dan Gerstein	$21,000 (Sept 2006)
Cable exec Ned Lamont	CT SEN Joe Lieberman	Tim Tagaris	$21,000 (Jul-Sept 2006)
Sheriff Mike Bouchard	MI SEN Debbie Stabenow	David All	$6,468 (Sept 2006)

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g. By blogger/adviser, prorated salary (Democrats)


Blogger/Adviser	Payment/Expenditure	Candidate	Campaign
Peter Daou	$60,000 (by way of FOH/HILLPAC)	Sen. Hillary Clinton	NY SEN incumbent
Laura Packard	$44,400	Sen. Debbie Stabenow	MI SEN incumbent
Alex Armour	$38,400	Rep. Jan Schakowsky	IL 09 incumbent
Scott Shields	$34,860 (up from starting $30,744)	Sen. Robert Menendez	incumbent
Jon Jones	$33,600	Treas. Bob Casey	PA SEN Rick Santorum
Andrew Tweeten	$31,200	State Sen. Jon Tester	MT SEN Conrad Burns
Aaron Hofman	$26,400	Sen. Debbie Stabenow	MI SEN incumbent
Jesse Taylor	$24,600	Rep. Ted Strickland	OH GOV open
Jesse Berney	$15,600 (by way of HILLPAC)	Sen. Hillary Clinton	NY SEN incumbent
Julie Fanselow	$15,600	Atty Larry Grant	ID 01 open
Aaron Silverstein	$10,200	Atty Bill Winter	CO 06 Tom Tancredo

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h. By blogger/adviser, prorated salary (Republicans)


Blogger/Adviser	Payment/Expenditure	Candidate	Campaign
Michael Brodkorb	$55,200	Rep. Mark Kennedy	MN SEN open
Mindy Finn	$52,800	Sen. Rick Santorum	PA SEN incumbent
Luke Bernstein	$51,600	Sen. Rick Santorum	PA SEN incumbent
Jon Henke	$27,600	Sen. George Allen	VA SEN incumbent
Stephen Smith	$22,400 (by way of VOLPAC)	Sen. Bill Frist	WH’08 prospective

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i. By blogger/adviser, prorated salary (combined)


Blogger/Adviser	Payment/Expenditure	Candidate	Campaign
Peter Daou	$60,000 (by way of FOH/HILLPAC)	Sen. Hillary Clinton	NY SEN incumbent
Michael Brodkorb	$55,200	Rep. Mark Kennedy	MN SEN open
Mindy Finn	$52,800	Sen. Rick Santorum	PA SEN incumbent
Luke Bernstein	$51,600	Sen. Rick Santorum	PA SEN incumbent
Laura Packard	$44,400	Sen. Debbie Stabenow	MI SEN incumbent
Alex Armour	$38,400	Rep. Jan Schakowsky	IL 09 incumbent
Jon Jones	$33,600	Treas. Bob Casey	PA SEN Rick Santorum
Andrew Tweeten	$31,200	State Sen. Jon Tester	MT SEN Conrad Burns
Aaron Hofman	$26,400	Sen. Debbie Stabenow	MI SEN incumbent
Scott Shields	$34,860 (up from starting $30,744)	Sen. Robert Menendez	NJ SEN incumbent
Jon Henke	$27,600	Sen. George Allen	VA SEN incumbent
Jesse Taylor	$24,600	Rep. Ted Strickland	OH GOV (open)
Stephen Smith	$22,400 (by way of VOLPAC)	Sen. Bill Frist	WH’08 prospective
Jesse Berney	$15,600 (by way of HILLPAC)	Sen. Hillary Clinton	NY SEN incumbent
Julie Fanselow	$15,600	Atty Larry Grant	ID 01 open
Aaron Silverstein	$10,200	Atty Bill Winter	CO 06 Tom Tancredo

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j. By blogger/adviser, lump sum (Democrats)


Blogger/Adviser	Payment/Expenditure	Candidate	Campaign
Jerome Armstrong	$204,000	Jon Corzine; Sherrod Brown; Mark Warner	NJ GOV ‘05 (won); OH SEN Mike DeWine; WH’08 (withdrawn)
Abraham (Josh) Chernila	$7,700	James Webb	VA SEN George Allen
Tim Tagaris	$38,000 (2005-2006)	Sherrod Brown; Ned Lamont	OH SEN Mike DeWine; CT SEN Joe Lieberman
Matt Stoller	$31,000	Jon Corzine	NJ GOV ‘05 open
Dan Gerstein	$21,000 (Sept 2006)	Sen. Joe Lieberman	CT SEN incumbent
Lowell Feld	$3,600	James Webb	VA SEN George Allen

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k. By blogger/adviser, lump sum (Republicans)


Blogger/Adviser	Payment/Expenditure	Candidate	Campaign
Patrick Hynes	$31,500	Sen. John McCain	WH’08 prospective
David All	$6,468 (Sept 2006)	Mike Bouchard	MI SEN Debbie Stabenow

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l. By blogger/adviser, lump sum (combined)



Blogger/Adviser	Payment/Expenditure	Candidate	Campaign
Jerome Armstrong	$204,000	Sen. Jon Corzine; Rep. Sherrod Brown; Ex-Gov. Mark Warner	NJ GOV ‘05 won; OH SEN Mike DeWine; WH’08 withdrawn
Abraham (Josh) Chernila	$7,700	Ex-Navy Sec. James Webb	VA SEN George Allen
Tim Tagaris	$38,000 (2005-2006)	Rep. Sherrod Brown; Cable exec Ned Lamont	OH SEN Mike DeWine; CT SEN Joe Lieberman
Patrick Hynes	$31,500	Sen. John McCain	WH’08 prospective
Matt Stoller	$31,000	Sen. Jon Corzine (won)	NJ GOV ‘05 open
Dan Gerstein	$21,000 (Sept 2006)	Sen. Joe Lieberman	CT SEN incumbent
David All	$6,468 (Sept 2006)	Sheriff Mike Bouchard	MI SEN Debbie Stabenow
Lowell Feld	$3,600	Ex-Navy Sec. James Webb	VA SEN George Allen

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And now, as promised, some additional thoughts:

• So, which blogs are they running, anyway? Here’s the list of blogs sponsored by the aforementioned campaigns.
• AllenHQ
• Blog of Joe
• Bob Casey Blog
• Blogs from VOLPAC
• Born Fighting: The WebbLog
• Grassroots for Grant
• Mark Kennedy for U.S. Senate
• Menendez for Senate Blog
• Mike Bouchard Blog
• Official Ned Lamont for U.S. Senate Campaign Blog
• Running with Rick Blog²
• SchaBLOGsky
• Stabenow Blog
• Strickland Blog
• Tester Time!
• Winter for Congress
• Which candidates have hired new media consultants but do not have blogs? They are none other than McCain and Clinton, whose 2008 presidential campaigns have yet to get underway (assuming they both run, which in the latter case is no certainty). Among the campaigns concluded, the only one still active is Mark Warner’s Forward Together Blog; currently it’s giving updates on Warner’s travels campaigning for Jim Webb.
• Corzine Connection and Sherrod Brown’s Grow Ohio, however, are more than defunct — not only are they no longer online, they cannot be found at the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. nor in Google’s cache.

  Additionally, Corzine was elected to New Jersey’s governorship a year ago, put away the blog with his campaign site then, and for what it’s worth, has battled back from low approval ratings without a presence in the blogosphere. Yet Brown shut down his site not long after announcing for Senate; he understandably shied away from the ’sphere, as it seemed to cause him nothing but headaches.

• Clearly, and none too surprisingly, Democratic candidates are hiring more bloggers and new media advisers than Republicans. (They are also more enthusiastic about paying in lump sums.) It seems to me that if your party is on the outs, you’re more likely to embrace new methods of reaching people than if you’re already in power and relatively complacent. The exception is if you’re an outsider in your own party (read: McCain), or behind in your own race. Santorum has been spending like there’s no tomorrow (about $11,000/month on bloggers alone) — and in his case, there probably isn’t.

  The only question is why more Republicans didn’t start blogs this time. Well, Allen didn’t until he had no choice, and more than a few vulnerable Republicans this time didn’t find themselves in real trouble until late (Chris Shays), can’t really face up to the scrutiny (Don Sherwood) or both (Curt Weldon).

  Wait for 2008.

• And it isn’t just Santorum who’s putting down a lot of money. Republicans may have hired fewer bloggers than have Democrats, but on the whole they’re paying them more. This may have something to do with fundraising, and especially the fact that all bloggers listed here are incumbents — even though Rep. Kennedy is running for the Senate, he of course has been in Washington for some time already. But if you’re going to be a Democrat heading off to work for a member of your party, it’s highly advisable that you write for MyDD first.
• There is sure to be a fallow period after the election; between Nov. 8 and sometime next year, chances are there will be very few candidates employing bloggers — because the only “candidates” will be those mulling a run at the White House.

  But a year from now, the numbers will surely return to this level, and in 2008 it’s highly probable many more bloggers and new media this-or-thats will be working for various incumbents and challengers. Blogging may be well-entrenched in the mediasphere, but politicians have been slower in recognizing their utility.

• And because we are never entirely above cheap shots here at Blog P.I. there is one additional moral to be divined from these numbers: Astrology works.

What do you think? Any angles we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments.

P.S. I think we knew this would happen:

1. The most significant update concerns Peter Daou. As Danny Glover corrects at Beltway Blogroll today, Daou draws a $3,750 monthly check from Friends of Hillary in addition to $1,250 from HILLPAC. This moves Hillary Clinton into first place as among Democrats in spending (second overall only to Santorum), and Daou to number one among consultants in terms of compensation.

Another note: This is in addition to Daou’s consulting for other clients including Media Matters and the AARP, but since we’re just talking about electoral campaigns, we’ll leave them aside. As noted above, these numbers are not meant to be taken as the individual’s total salary.

2. I’ve added a note to Henke’s name (which Olly had put in but I took out) noting that this number here is almost certainly off. Of course, we might’ve added this to virtually all of the numbers, but Henke being the last-hired among the goup here, there was even less information to go on. Just FYI.

3. I also goofed and listed SantorumBlog as the official campaign blog. The actual official blog has now replaced it in the list above.

More to come as necessary.

Now Webb has set aside writing novels for politics, and by the dictates of modern web campaigning, he can be found in another “book.” That is to say, Facebook. (Thanks, I’ll be here all week.)

Having graduated from college two years before the company was founded, I haven’t been a Facebook user in the past. Only this morning, after getting a tip about the contents of Webb’s account, did I register for an account. So here is the very top of the front page of his profile:

And here’s why I logged in — wouldn’t you like to know what kind of issue/lifestyle groups this possible junior senator from Virginia belongs?

Jim Webb, meet Jonathan Frist and Julia Corker.

But what of it? As a dispassionate observer, I say not much. It’s not clear to me that Webb intentionally signed up for this group (and others like it, though they are now lost to history (and by history I mean the servers at Facebook HQ)) in the first place and something must be said for the fact that the screen shot I provide is Webb leaving the group.

If someone wanted to press the issue (like maybe a certain current junior senator from Virginia) they probably could, though they’d have to monitor Webb’s Facebook page for longer than I have. And if Webb’s commercial storytelling is relevant to the campaign, why not his social networking?

* Even Allen’s new media coordinator Jon Henke, writing at the campaign-sponsored Allen HQ blog, sounds a little non-committal about whether Webb’s fiction is relevant:

Democratic blogger Andy Borowitz said of Scooter Libby’s book, “Read into it what you will.” Whether voters think what Webb has written is relevant or irrelevant, so be it. Nevertheless, it is part and parcel of the public record he has cited, so let the voters judge for themselves.

I’m not sure “Democratic blogger” would be the first description I’d use for Borowitz — to the left of Scrappleface, okay; co-creator of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” sure; a wannabe one-man The Onion, most definitely.

But I digress: Though Henke has taken some lumps for changing his tune to align with his current employer, I think this time he might be doing more than just harmonizing.

Besides giving the Webb library a boost at Amazon, I don’t know what this line of attack accomplished besides making Allen look desperate. If anything, it seems more likely to create a backlash against substance-free negative tactics. Their internal polls must not look very good.

Update: A Republican campaign staffer points out to me that Facebook created pages for every major federal candidate this cycle. Guess who else has one? That’s right: George Allen. But it doesn’t appear that the campaign has done anything with it.