Fellow Hampton Roads Blogger Bearing Drift has a post written by Paul Goldman, former strategist for the Wilder and Warner gubernatorial campaigns. In it, he questions whether bloggers for Webb have gone too far in their attacks on Miller, so far, in fact, as to actually hurt their candidate:
Clearly, by allowing the Bloggers to go after Miller the way they did, the Webb strategists helped Miller in this regard:
It set the climate for Miller to do what he has been doing in the last few weeks, spending $100,000’s on direct mail making out what his campaign pollsters – having tested it in polls and focus groups – believe is a very powerful negative case against Jim Webb, or any candidate running in a Democratic Party primary.
The Miller case against Webb has been relentless, and it is likely to continue.
Is it working?
That is something the voters will tell on June 13th.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
If Miller wins I think it will have more to do with his willingness to campaign and Webb’s lack of willingness for the same than anything posted or not posted on blogs.
Most of the people I talk to are only vaguely aware there is a primary, nevermind people blogging about it. Having said that, there is some evidence to suggest the Webb blogs are not as effective as they think –
http://krehbiel.blogspot.com/2006/05/webbs-positive-campaign-so-far.html
Mr. Goldman,
I respectfully disagree. The blogosphere despises Miller mostly because it’s filled with techies. This hatred of Miller predated this race by years. There are entire organizations in this country whose sole purpose has been to combat what Harris Miller has been promoting and Harris Miller is their top aim. Had you googled Harris Miller a year ago you would have found the same level of animosity towards the man. Harris Miller knew this. Harris Miller knew that he was going to launch a horribly nasty campaign as soon as Webb entered the race because that’s the only chance he had of winning against a man like Jim Webb. Most of the people viewing the vicious attacks on Jim Webb on the air and in the mail don’t read blogs. If Harris Miller wanted to counter the blogosphere’s viciousness towards him, he would have launched them within the blogosphere. Harris Miller may use the blogosphere’s hatred of him as an excuse for his ugly behavior all over the place in this campaign, but it’s just an excuse and nothing more. Same kind of nastiness that earned him so much hatred by techies throughout the country. Nothing surprising at all from Harris Miller.
WorriedDem – I do hope you read the entirety of Paul Goldman’s message. I understand his point to be that the Webb people used the bloggers to attack Miller, not unlike he used the newspapers. His only concern is that it may backfire.
Of course I agree with Alice. Outside of the blogsphere, little attention is being paid to this race and I don’t know if the bloggers are having much effect.