Political blogs

Blogs are according to the NY Times revolutionising US politics. Off Center provides a good description of this role in 2004 when they helped John Kerry almost match Bush in funding, but in the US context they are becoming much more; now functioning as a means of candidates communicating directly to voters:
In 2004, John Edwards, a former Democratic senator from North Carolina and his party's vice presidential candidate, spent much of his time talking to voters in living rooms in New Hampshire and Iowa; now he is putting aside hours every week to videotape responses to videotaped questions, the entire exchange posted on his blog.
For John Edwards see here (love 'for all of us' slogan, worked for John Howard). Edwards 2004 theme of Bush's war on work very relevant to the current preoccupation in Australia with 'wealth maxmisation' rather than work.
American-inspired Australian equivalent is GetUp! which trades on the ability of Howard, like Bush, to mobilise opposition. Can this be more in Australia: a means of actually informing the direction of an alternative Australian government? This will be harder in Australia than in US given inward and closed nature of the ALP. LaborFirst is inward looking, a predictable collection of demands for Labor to do this or that.