I really enjoyed this post on Riehl World View. Probably more than I should have.

Paraphrasing a bit, Riehl asks a probably fair question – if Markos Moulitsas and Jerome Armstrong are the new golden boys of the Democratic Party’s strategist set, the guys with the plan, the guys that Mark Warner and Ned Lamont and many other candidates want to talk to, is it fair for people to ask… what have they done in their pasts to justify this trust, this faith, this hype?

We all like to think, “boy, if they just listened to me” – we would have our parties at 90 percent approval, and legislation passing like clockwork, and the economy humming like the engine of a sports car, U.S. Special Forces would pull bin Laden out of a cave wearing soiled underwear and al-Qaeda would send a telegram asking if the deck of the Battleship Missouri were available to sign the proclamation formalizing their surrender. If we were coaching or managing our favorite sports team, the championship would be ours.

The temptation to believe we have all the answers is a universal impulse. The fact that we don’t have all the answers, that we misjudge things, and that sometimes our ideas just don’t work is hard to keep in mind, and often worth it.

So while the world is full of people who think they would make brilliant political strategists, only a minority of them are actually worth their salt. What we’re seeing in Democratic circles – and perhaps this is going on in Republican circles, but if it is I haven’t heard of it – is that candidates with more than a little cash to throw around are hiring guys who are more or less political rookies, who have some accomplishments in 1) building web sites 2) building audiences 3) getting those audiences to donate money to candidates to advise them on how to win elections. I suspect that the skills are not quite the same.

Why? I know Shrum is 0 for 8. And new blood can be a good thing. But what is Armstrong – or any comparable blogger-turned-consultant doing in his meetings with candidates that make those aspiring lawmakers say, “Yes, this is the guy I want giving me advice on the campaign trial?”

Cam: Long time no blog, sorry. I have no idea why a candidate would look at Kos or Jerome Armstrong and say “yes indeed, this is who I want” unless the candidate believes that these two represent a) a large number of potential voters and b) the new heart and soul of the Democrat Party.

I think the influence of Kos and Armstrong is vastly overrated, and if they represent the heart and soul of the Democrat Party, we’re in a lot of trouble.

Jim: Cam, I have to quibble with the argument that the influence of Kos and Armstrong is overrated. I’m looking at the recent Newsweek profile (and that in and of itself is a measure of influence - how many other bloggers has Newsweek written a profile about?):

Still, the Democrats lost the week in the war over the war, and Moulitsas—who chats with Senate leadership aides several times a week and has brainstormed with Democratic operatives about the fall campaign—could no longer just criticize from the outside…

As public support for the war began to slip, Democratic leaders began turning to him for help. Dean hired him. And after John Kerry’s defeat in 2004, party leadership invited him to speak to Senate Democrats about how they could better use the Internet as a fund-raising tool.

Do Democratic Senate leadership aides talk to Josh Marshall several times a week? Do “Democratic operatives” sit around and brainstorm with Yglesias, or Kevin Drum? Has the party leadership invited other bloggers to address Senate Democrats?

Kos, is, for better or worse, not just another blogger, and he has much more access (and therefore, arguably, influence) over Democratic Party leaders than we do with Republican leaders. In fact, I’m not sure if there’s any equally-influential conservative blogger. Maybe somebody at Red State?