Now that DC has awakened to the reality of a more engaged online populace, not only are we seeing online announcements of candidacy (or candidacy exploration, heh), but also the beginnings of what is pretty much inevitable:

Negative campaigning in blog threads.

Yes, not only will we have wingnut fundamentalist suicide blog-bombers hitting Democrat-leaning blogs (and no doubt the agitator liberals picking at sites like Little Green Boogers), but also same-party partisans trying to score points in comments on various political blogs.

We saw a little of it in the last election on the various echo chamber sites, but now we're almost certain to see more professional operatives bringing their low-standards previous held only for television advertising into the new media of online interaction.

Oh I can hardly wait for all the new wrinkles this will bring to the karma-points circle jerks on the überblogs of the left.

Is the golden age over? Are we doomed to drag the internet down to the mainstream media advertising level? Personally, as a not-much-of-a-reader-any-more of the so-called A-list blogger/pundits, I don't expect such developments to affect me very much. But who knows? This community blog has known its moments of respectable traffic, and had some pretty incredible contributors breaking out the sharp knives few others will even acknowledge.

Yet it will be interesting how the efforts to manufacture consent in various online communities plays out when the Beltway Pros really get involved.

One thing is clear: the Dems announcing this week seem to know themselves. Barack Obama was simple and direct, without playing into the star image he's acquired of late. Hillary Clinton's announcement was smoother and more relaxed than I could ever have imagined. And Bill Richardson pretty much won me over on This Week this morning -- I never knew he was so charismatic and could be so incisive about the issues.

None of these evaluations are meant as an endorsement, not that anyone cares what I think. I remain an independent, pretty much distrusting everything coming from within two hours' drive from the Mall.

I admit I am curious about how the blog campaigns will be professionalized, though. Todays question: How true is John Edwards' image? Let's sling some comments and pass the time. It's only 21 months and change until election day!

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