Someone send Axelrod a dime so he can buy a clue.

How DARE Obama not bow down to the bloggers! Who does he think he is?

Right, more of the centrist status quo, like not relying on 527s to do your campaigning for you.  Like standing for reform and actually doing it.  

And now the Obama trolls will descend.

Who cares.

At least Obama is open and honest about this.

Team Clinton still denies their much seedier relationship with Drudge.

Once again, Clinton gets a pass, Obama gets whipped.

And yes, Obama does realize that the blogosphere is but a tiny slither that he can ignor...NOT at his, nor anyone else's peril.

Sorry, that's just the hard truth. He doesn't need you people.

Obama should make sure his message only reaches Democrats. It is an outrage that he is trying to get non-Democrats to vote for him. Elections are won by getting 40% of the vote, not 50%.

I figured out Obama a long time ago, so non of this is shocking.

His game from Day 1 has been to do whatever it takes to ingratiate himself to the DC elite. And it has worked. David Broder and David Brooks are singing his praises. Obama figured out that is where the power is. They are the kingmakers, not the liberal bloggers. So yes he couldn't care less.

Why do you think the MSM likes him so much? 1) They hate the Clintons and would like to see Hillary defeated 2) Obama is promising to be their kind of Democrat. They are hoping he will be another lieberman and he is giving them what they want

The netroots has become obsessed with itself.

I thought the netroots was mobilzed towards a certain end. I was wrong.

The netroots is now simply interested in preserving it's own power.

obama is a total fraud

i just hope dems find out before it is too late

I guess everyone who worked with Drudge is a fraud? Including Hillary????Its politics pure and simple.  

And why should such a small demographic slither--such as those who comprise the netroots--get to dictate anything?

I mean, the netroots is hardly diverse in terms of race, gender, and class.

I mean, if you could get the Klan to take off their damn sheets, could you really tell the difference between a bloggers convention and a Klan rally?

Stop trying to divide our party. Its politics

"don't play chicken with the troops"

can't be bothered to vote on kyl-lieberman

bash unions etc...

So why should we believe he can bring the country together?

That's his big selling point, but we've got no reason to believe he's any good at it.

Roger Simon made an interesting point on Hardball a few weeks back.  As Obama looked strong at the point Matthews was laying out his dream scenerio, basically asking Simon (not really asking more like telling) that Obama wins Iowa and rolls through all the rest of the states unstoppable.  

Simon burst Matthews bubble  and drew a dirty look with a suggestion that perhaps if Obama wins Iowa Democrats will step back and think about that and what it means and take a hard look at Obama.

In other words if Obama wins Iowa it is gut check time for Democrats.  Is he the right candidate?  Or might voters in later states feel the need to step in and correct a mistake?

I think many Democrats are starting to become uncomfortable with Obama, especially with issues being raised like these on the front page today.

DP that's not what I get. You may not want to acknowledge this . I live here in Memphis and I know GOPers and Indy's who would love to vote for him. They may not ideologically agree with him but they see him as a good guy. You know why the conservative punditry likes him because many of their Harvard Law friends confirmed to them what I all ready know. He is the real deal. My friends (YD's) who work on Capitol Hill say the same things. I met him when he came to Memphis and campaigned for Harold Ford he is a nice down to earth guy.

All those who can see the ad on Drudge Report are in Iowa. There is a lot of traffic on the site. I would assume that the ad is targeted to Iowa IP addresses that are visiting Drudge. I don't see the problem with this. This is no worse than Hillary leaking her first quarter fundraising to Drudge.

Obama has always reminded me of both Lieberman and W.

It's a shock to realize that Independents and Republicans will be picking our Democratic nominee just as they picked our Democratic Senator from Connecticut.

I just went to Drudge, something I usually do about once every three months or so and I did not see any Obama ad.  I don't have a Drudge account, do you need to login or something to see it?

You have reached a new low.  You are right there with Hillary, dishing dirt about kindergarden essays.  

You are just plain overreaching.  Trying to pretend that Obama is anything other than a progressive whose voting record and life choices demonstrates that commitment is complete bullshit.

It is completely embarassing to watch lefties repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot.  No wonder the left has been getting its ass whooped for a generation.

You have the best progressive candidate in a generation right in front of your beady little eyes and you can't even recognize him.  If it were not so dangerous, it would be laughable.

Self defeatism on the left.

I can't wait to laugh at your sorry crap tommorrow night.  Good grief!

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail /2008/01/02/more_tension_with_democratic _g.html#comments

You people are sad.

To those who ask "who cares" tell that to the next Democrat  you want to get elected that Drudge attacks. Then ask that question.

"They may not ideologically agree with him but they see him as a good guy."

You know why they think he is a "goog guy"?

Because nobody has laid a glove on him

Since he has appeared on the national stage the GOP has treated him kindly and the media has cheered him on

Gore was a "nice guy"

Kerry was a "nice guy"

That was before they were slimed by the right wing noise machine and the corporate media

Is there nothing this guy won't do?  I am really shocked. I would have never thought Obama would slime Gore/Kerry, derate unions, and now for the jugular-advertise on Drudge. Obama has been a huge disappointment.

nothing more, nothing less. jmho.

a mountain out of mole hill.

seriously, the guy said the democrats need to reach out to other voters better than Gore and Kerry did.  Does anyone seriously think that either of them did a good job of that?

Obama was always a strong second place choice for me behind Edwards. It was hard not to be inspired by his persona and his progressive roots said a lot to me about where he might lead America. But he manged to piss away any progessive populist credentials he ever had in the last month. Yeah, he spoke out against the Iraq war but he's been MIA around any attempts to end it since then. He has essentially positioned himself to the right of not only Edwards, but even Clinton. He's pissed on labor, universal medical care and trial lawyers. He's fed into stupid right-wing talking points. He could easily be at the same place in Iowa w/o doing any of those things. That he freely choose to do so is a real bad sign.

The way he's been talking is giving me a creeping feeling that an Obama presidency will be a confused, directionless and frustrating mess that will likely last four years and kill all chances to create a permanent Democratic majority. The GOP ain't going to call a cease fire just becuase of his charm. Kind of like the last President who acted like he walked on water and didn't have to listen to the party's base (that very nice man from Georgia). I hope I'm wrong.

I can hear Obama now .... "Axeman better pin this one on an unnamed low level staffer.  That'll fix it real good."

First D-Punjab, then McClurkin, now Drudge.

Oh well. You can all forgive him after the swearing-in.

This is getting ridiculous. Next I'm expecting to read that Obama uses IE instead of Firefox, further tarnishing his name in the eyes of bloggers.

What about the big issues such as the war in Iraq and government transparency? Don't those deserve more time than whether Obama ran banner ads on a website?

I think I'm voting for Edwards...but this is just silly. Jonathan, you're probably the most objective blogger on the site...but in this case it probably would've served to screen for complete irrelevance.

I'm just not buying the blogosphere narrative of Barack hating Democrats. He didn't bash Gore and Kerry; he was just saying he was electable, and reminding us how much it stings to lose. He didn't bash trial lawyers; he just made the point that he went for the career he thought was most noble, even though there was a very lucrative career available to him. I do agree that bringing up the social security issue was dumb. But I've seen far far dumber.

I realize I sound like an Obama apologist...but I'm really tired of this ridiculous narrative.

Josh Marshall has an interesting take on the Obama-Drudge story.  He says it is possible Obama's campaign had no idea b/c most internet ads are sold through intermediaries.  See the link below.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/06 2444.php

This is madness. The netroots community is obsessed with its own sense of self importance. The idea that a retraction by dailykos is going to matter to anyone that lives a nrmal life, meaning one that doesn't involve countless hours writing multiple page diaries on mydd, and rereading taylor marsh rants, is laughable. I can sympathize with the criticism that obama is relatively inexperienced in nat'l issues/foreign policy, but simply making.things up in the final hours before the caucuses in a DESPERATE attempt to hurt his campaign is pathetic. conservatives aren't  the only people that visit drudge.

this post is so irrelevant to the issues in this campaign.  It's time to move on to better news sources.   OpenLeft covered this issue in a far more responsible manner.  

Most blog ads are not controlled by the person who buys the ad on which sites they show up on. This is beyond pathetic. Hell, we have seen big oil ads on Daily Kos via blog ads.

Not only is this post petty, it shows a misunderstanding of how web advertising works.

As someone who works in the web design industry and has run these kinds of campaigns, I can tell you that the ad buyer doesn't decide that they want their ads to appear on a particular site.

Google Adwords, kind of the gold standard for pay-per-click advertising, asks you to enter keywords to match your content to the content of sites you'd like it to appear on. Other ad networks, such as Yahoo and MSN's, work similarly. So, you aren't choosing "Drudge Report" or "Huffington Post." You're choosing "politics" and "news."

Furthermore, the idea that Barack Obama himself would have any involvement in this is just idiotic. My guess would be that he's a little too busy running around Iowa to be participating in banner ad decisions.

I get so confused....
Even Obama supporters are claiming his "lawyers" thing and his Gore'Kerry thing are attempts by his campaign to reach across.
The attitudes expressed here by those who dismiss the "netroots" has the certain stench of Republican trollism...
However, if Obama, like Clinton believes the mythical center will win the General Election?
The Democratic voters moved left of there in 2006 even if those we elected did not...

Remember that Harry and Nancy reached over in 2007...
and in their own way so did Clinton and Obama...
If either of them had taken to the floor, for anything important with the passion and courage of Dodd the election would be over. But they did not so it is not..
I hope all you HRC and Obama supporters have defended Harry and Nancy against the unfounded attacks by the "netroots"
We will see how this all plays out on 2/5...
Nothing will be determined before then..

I said the same thing about 47% of the population dead set against the Democratic nominee.

Except I included Obama in that.