Gonzosphere

Monday, June 23, 2008 | 2:34 PM

While 2008 is largely being fought in the middle and is, as a result, nowhere near as partisan as 2004, the blogosphere seems to be a haven for those who belief the race is a battle between good and evil on the scale of Return of the Jedi. FireDogLake's Jane Hamsher, and former RNC e-campaign director Patrick Ruffini, spoke about their respective efforts via the internet. Whereas, Ruffini is clear on his role, as an activist leader for moderate Republicans, Hamsher (a former Hollywood producer) referred to herself as a "liberal blogger" and voiced her concern about competing with "Old Journalism's" efforts to blog (such as Time's Swampland). She explained how she helped take down Joe Lieberman's senate primary campaign, while she was also reporting on it and boasted of raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for a liberal PAC. Hamsher's modus operandi epitomizes the central quandary many people have in relating blogging to journalism. In one sense, bloggers like Hamsher represent a new frontier but in another sense, they are just reviving Hunter S. Thompson's Gonzo style. Thompson's work certainly had its place in the media realm but it was also clear, what we were getting: a proudly partisan, often drug-addled, sometimes exaggerated commentary on society from a one-of-a-kind drunken genius. He did not necessarily give us the truth but he did give solace to the disenfranchised and took down the veil that covered how we get our election news in the process.