Let's hear it for the pocket protector crowd.

Originally published on Music for America.

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Today I'm gonna teach you why you should be grateful for having all these pent-up obsessive dorks blogging and commenting on political stuffs 24/7/365.

There is a practice called google bombing, and it's the reason why when you google the word failure, George W. Bush comes up as entry #1.

Basically, it works like this:


Whenever you get on the internet and do a google search for, say Kenny Loggins or whatever it is you spend your time searching for, google.com indexes every time the words Kenny Loggins link to a website. The website that has the most kenny logginses linking in to it wins and receives the number 1 slot on your google search results. The idea is that collectively, the majority of people will link to the most relevant Kenny Loggins sites out there.

OF course, once you understand how this works, you can start to manipulate the system. But you need a whole lotta help.

And that's where the dorks come in. They're smart, and organized. From MyDD:

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the number one way that voters use the Internet for political action is to search for information on candidates.

I will compile a list of seventy articles... Every article will focus on a different Republican candidate, and will be written by as generally trusted a news source as possible. It will also present as unflattering a view on the Republican candidate as possible... I will produce an article... that embeds that negative article into a hyperlink that names the Republican candidate... [and] send a copy of that post out to as many bloggers as possible, who can also place the post on their blogs.

The result of this should be that the most damning, non-partisan article written on every key Republican candidate for house and Senate will appear both high on every Google search for that candidate, and automatically as an advertisement on every search for that candidate.

Sorry that this sounds so blantantly partisan, folks, but the truth is that all of these re-thugs gotta go.

This is just one way that the bloggers (collectively they call themselves the "Netroots") work together intelligently to make a difference. I will play this game. You should too. All hail the dorks.

bombs away.

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--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl


--AZ-01: Rick Renzi


--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth



--CA-04: John Doolittle


--CA-11: Richard Pombo


--CA-50: Brian Bilbray


--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave


--CO-05: Doug Lamborn


--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell



--CT-04: Christopher Shays


--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan


--FL-16: Joe Negron


--FL-22: Clay Shaw


--ID-01: Bill Sali


--IL-06: Peter Roskam



--IL-10: Mark Kirk


--IL-14: Dennis Hastert


--IN-02: Chris Chocola


--IN-08: John Hostettler


--IA-01: Mike Whalen


--KS-02: Jim Ryun



--KY-03: Anne Northup


--KY-04: Geoff Davis


--MD-Sen: Michael Steele


--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht


--MN-06: Michele Bachmann


--MO-Sen: Jim Talent



--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns


--NV-03: Jon Porter


--NH-02: Charlie Bass


--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson


--NM-01: Heather Wilson


--NY-03: Peter King



--NY-20: John Sweeney


--NY-26: Tom Reynolds


--NY-29: Randy Kuhl


--NC-08: Robin Hayes


--NC-11: Charles Taylor


--OH-01: Steve Chabot



--OH-02: Jean Schmidt


--OH-15: Deborah Pryce


--OH-18: Joy Padgett


--PA-04: Melissa Hart


--PA-07: Curt Weldon


--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick



--PA-10: Don Sherwood


--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee


--TN-Sen: Bob Corker


--VA-Sen: George Allen


--VA-10: Frank Wolf


--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick



--WA-08: Dave Reichert