A number of you have asked me whether I was going to YearlyKos, the convention of lefty bloggers now going on in Las Vegas. Having just been to Vegas over Memorial Day, I wasn't about to spend another weekend in that city so soon. Maybe next year.

If, in fact, they hold another YearlyKos next year, we should have a great deal more data on the effectiveness of the lefty blogosphere in terms of political influence. The political reporter for the nation's paper of record remarks here that blogs have become as important to the left as talk radio is by the right, which is true, but which also has the potential to worsen the partisan cancer that has afflicted our national dialogue. Talk radio reaches a much wider audience than blogs, and its listeners are a good deal more diverse than the white upper-middle class readers of Kos or Atrios. When Rush Limbaugh lies, a lot of people listen, and it actually has an impact on the political debate.

Although it is untrue that Kos has a perfect losing record in terms of endorsing candidates (his blog endorsed two special election victors in 2004), it is not irrelevant to note that the intense partisanship, while an effective money-raising tool among the party base, is a pretty lame strategy for liberals when it comes to putting up W's on the scoreboard. If liberal blogs were really all that, Howard Dean would be President, and not holding the exalted title of DNC Chief.

Hopefully, the loss last week in the special election will prove to be chastening. Tarring the other side as a cabal of corrupt hacks may be affirming to our sense of moral superiority, but it doesn't elect squat. People are concerned about the continuing quagmire in Iraq, immigration, the cost of health care, and of course, the economy; they don't give a rat's rectum about who leaked Valerie Plame's identity or who Jack Abramoff is. Conducting e-mail campaigns against least-favorite reporters or whining about how the mean MSM doesn't laugh at Steven Colbert's after-dinner jokes doesn't redound to the prestige of the blogosphere, especially when there are serious problems afflicting our country. It would be nice if the stars of next year's convention actually have ideas to tout, rather than just anger and strategies for fundraising and sucking up to the media establishment.