OK, this is just a snapshot on a week when the candidate has been on vacation and is about to have rotator cuff surgery (have the Democrats nominated the Steve Karsay of politics here?), but I’ve noticed it before: go check out Josh Marshall’s blog, and one thing you’ll notice on the front page is an almost complete absence of items about John Kerry. There’s only one item apiece on Matt Yglesias’ and Kevin Drum’s blogs (there’s a bit more at Kos and Mark Kleiman, but in neither case are they saying much about Kerry’s proposed policies or speaking favorably of his candidacy, while Atrios has mostly just been asking for donations). It’s been previously noted that there were no pro-Kerry blogs of note during the primaries, when major bloggers were lining up behind Clark, Edwards and Dean. Now, it’s always easier to attack – I’ve almost certainly written more about Kerry than Bush lately – but keep your eyes out, because if the left side of the blogosphere can’t generate much enthusiasm for Kerry and can’t get enough of a fix on the man’s policy proposals to stump for them, that’s probably a sign that he’s going to have trouble getting a coherent and exciting message out to the portion of the population that isn’t obsessed with politics.
Marshall, by the way, is clearly worried about Kerry (link via Tom Maguire), who’s down 7 points now to Bush in the latest poll from Pennsylvania (link via The Corner). As you may have noticed, I’ve added links at the bottom of the page that open Google News searches that should pull in the lastest poll from the various major battleground states.
On the other hand, the New York Times has some good news for Kerry and bad news for Atrios. (Links also via Maguire).