Politics on the Web
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Will this be the year America elects its first Black president? Or will a woman become commander in chief? It’s a Presidential election year and it’s shaping up to be an exciting contest. Already, we’ve seen Hillary Clinton go from “inevitable” nominee to second place in the Democratic race. And John McCain’s campaign was labeled dead in the water only a couple months ago. Now, Hillary’s in the fight her life as she tries to fight off Barack Obama. In the meantime, McCain’s got the nomination locked up, but will he be able to raise enough funds for a national campaign?
If you want to get in on the action, or just see what TV’s talking heads are talking about, here are 50 websites devoted to politics that you should check out.
Spin from within
Here’s where the candidates, and their parties, put on their best face. This is what they want you to know about them.
All politics, all the time
These sites keep track of the political news of the day. If a candidate stumbles on the campaign trail, these sites will have a link to the story–often within a few minutes.
Real Clear Politics: Updated throughout the day, RCP publishes pundits and polls and links to the hottest stories of the day.
Politico: Congress, the Presidential race, political gossip and the media. A smorgasbord of everything political from the best dressed staffers on Capitol Hill to the latest Obama/Clinton dust up.
Memeorandum: What’s got bloggers in an uproar today? Every 5 minutes, memeorandum updates with links to the most blogged political stories and the bloggers they outraged.
Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire: News, buzz and commentary updated around the clock.
The Drudge Report: Links to news, opinion, gossip, plus Drudge exclusives accompanied by his trademark siren.
Free for alls
Moonbat! Wingnut! Take your gloves off before you enter these forums, where the party faithful meet up to discuss the news of the day and throw a little bit of invective on the other side. Free Republic comes from the right. Democratic Underground comes from the left.
Blogs
This is the fun stuff: Strong opinions from left, right and center, professionals and amateurs.
From the right
Townhall: Hugh Hewitt, talk radio host, law professor and author blogs at Townhall.com along with his fellow rightwingers of radio, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager and Mike Gallagher.
Hit and Run: The blog for Reason, the libertarian magazine. If you think the most scandalous aspect of the Spitzer brouhaha was the fact that prostitution is illegal, this is your kind of place.
Power Line: Three lawyers with charter memberships in the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy opine daily on current events, politics and the Miss Universe pageant. Played a key role in Rathergate, the story on President Bush’s military career that lead former CBS news anchor Dan Rather to resign.
Just One Minute: Tom Maguire, a witty and elegant writer, picks apart media coverage of the daily news with precision, though his coverage of the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson/Scooter Libby story may have bordered on the obsessive.
Michael Barone, the author of The Almanac of American Politics knows a thing or two about elections and American politics.
Classical Values: A libertarian, gun nut who happens to be gay, lawyer Eric Scheie blogs to “end the culture war by restoring classical values.”
Andrew Sullivan–The Daily Dish: Sullivan, former editor of the liberal stalwart The New Republican, is a self-described conservative who now supports Obama.
Little Green Footballs: Web designer Charles Johnson blogged about bicycle racing and web design until 9/11 when he began posting about the War on Terror, Islamic extremism and the Arab/Israeli conflict. Another veteran of Rathergate. Also known for exposing as altered, photos run by the news agency Reuters. Has been criticized for the vitriol coming from his commenters.
Right Wing News: “America’s Ambassador of Whoop@ss” is famous in the blogosphere for his interviews of conservative bigwigs. Master listmaker: Most annoying liberals, best political websites, etc.
Instapundit: Law professor, blogger, podcaster–he’s a one-man content machine. Indeed. Blog owner Glenn Reynolds specializes in the pithy, with lots of short posts linking to stuff he finds interesting. An early adopter, Reynolds inspired many of his readers to start their own blogs.
Hot Air: “The world’s first full-service conservative Internet broadcast network” is the brainchild of syndicated columnist and über blogger Michelle Malkin. Lots of videos with commentary by AllahPundit, a popular conservative blogger who helped expose Rathergate; and Ed Morrissey, who blogged at Captain’s Quarters before jumping ship and becoming a full-time new media guy.
ScrappleFace: Funny stuff.
Patterico’s Pontifications: The blog of a mysterious Los Angeles County prosecutor who took to blogging as an alternative to “forcibly jamming” his opinions down people’s throats. Bête noire is bias at the LA Times, though that’s just a jumping off point.
Redstate: “Not as big as Instapundit, but then again - he’s not human.” A community blog, similar to liberal powerhouse Daily Kos (see below), that allows users to post content.
Ace of Spades HQ: Vulgar. Sophomoric. Hilarious. Favorite target is fellow blogger Andrew Sullivan. Comment threads often funnier than the actual posts.
From the left
Talk Left, billed as “the on-line source for liberal coverage of crime-related political and injustice news,” is the blog of Jeralyn Merritt, a criminal defense attorney.
The Reality-Based Community: Six left-wing policy wonks with unlimited opinions.
Wonkette: Snark delivered daily. Original editrix Ana Marie Cox became famous for exposing the identity of Washingtonienne, a Capitol Hill staffer who slept her way to the bottom.
Oliver Willis: Self described liberal bomb thrower. Fits.
Talking Points Memo: Former magazine editor Joshua Micah Marshall turned to blogging after the 2000 election. Partisan muckraker won a George Polk Award for coverage of the firing of eight United States attorneys, a first for a blogger.
Huffington Post: Launched by millionaire socialite Arianna Huffington, a former Republican. Features big Hollywood names opining on their cause du jour as well as professional columnists.
The Daily Kos: A a discussion forum and group blog for what MyDD founder (see below) Jerome Armstrong calls the netroots–known on the right as the nutroots–liberal and progressive activists whose goal is to restore the Democrats to the White House. Founded by Markos Moulitsas in 2002 “when an oppressive and war-crazed administration suppressed all dissent as unpatriotic and treasonous,” Daily Kos is a collaborative blog that allows visitors to publish their own blog posts and comments.
Think Progress: Blog of the Center for American Progress Action, which was founded as a liberal alternative to Republican think tanks like the Heritage Foundation.
Crooks and Liars: Posts lots of video clips, with commentary, of political events, and TV and radio shows like “The O’Reilly Factor” and “The Daily Show.”Washington Monthly Political Animal: Began as a 2004 campaign blog for the magazine but turned into a permanent feature, thanks to writer Kevin Drum’s well-researched and lucid commentary. Drum also gave the world Friday Catblogging, for which he is either to be thanked or reviled depending on where your sympathies lie within the feline spectrum.
Eschaton: The trademark of Atrios, aka Duncan Black. is the one- or two-word snarky comment with link, often deployed in long-running feature, Wanker of the Day.
Skippy the bush kangaroo: Coined the term blogtopia, meaning the universe of left-leaning blogs. It’s a land where they’re apparently opposed to using capital letters.
MyDD: Founded by political activist Jerome Armstrong, MyDD (Direct Democracy) is a collaborative blog founded by activist Jerome Armstrong, who was instrumental in the rise to prominence of the Howard Dean campaign.
Crooked Timber: Group blog of academics covers political theory, philosophy, political and cultural commentary. Tagline is Immanuel Kant’s: “Out of crooked timber of humanity. No straight thing was ever made.”
Matthew Yglesias: Long-time blogger who now blogs at the Atlantic Monthly site. Andrew Sullivan named the Yglesias Award in his honor “for writers, politicians, columnists or pundits who actually criticize their own side, make enemies among political allies, and generally risk something for the sake of saying what they believe.”
Somewhere in the middle?
Kausfiles: The “mostly political” blog of self-described neo-liberal Mickey Kaus, professional journalist and author of The End of Equality.
The Moderate Voice: Group blog, stridently centrist.
Megan McArdle: The blog of the “world’s tallest female econoblogger” covers business, politics, economics and cooking. A little bit of this and a little bit of that.
Media blogs
The Caucus: New York Times staffers blog about the 2008 campaign and other things political.
Poynter Online–Romenesko: This is where the media goes to leak memos from news organization, pick apart news coverage, carp about their jobs and snipe at each other.
The Corner: Group blog of National Review. A freewheeling discussion among such luminaries as Mark Steyn, Jonah Goldberg and John Derbyshire, to name a few.
The Plank: The New Republic’s group blog vows: “We can’t promise always to be the most incisive or funniest blog. But, dammit, we know how to waste your time.” And isn’t that what the Internet’s for, after all?
Tapped: Group blog of liberal magazine The American Prospect.
Contentions: From influential opinion journal, Commentary, a group blog covering foreign policy, American politics, international affairs, Israel and the Middle East.
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If Bush stifled all dissent, how come Kos is not rotting away in some prison? Just asking.