The knock on the lefty blogosphere in its early years was that it made a lot of noise but accomplished very little. Since 2006 or so, however, the netroots' influence on the Democratic party has grown steadily, to the point that on Monday, Daily Kos founder and publisher Markos Moulitsas could crow that the Senate's weakening of filibuster rules via the so-called nuclear option was "perhaps [Daily Kos's] greatest activism victory in its decade-long existence."
Kos wrote:
...We were laughed at when we first advocated filibuster reform, but over the years, more and more progressives joined the cause...Our final one, with 114,000 signatures, was physically delivers to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office. The Daily Kos community has delivered more signatures to filibuster petitions than any other topic. It was, in effect, our number one priority...
...And don't forget our electoral efforts. We made support for filibuster reform a key plank in our questionnaire as we helped several new better Democrats get elected to the Senate, including reform leaders Jeff Merkley and Tom Udall, who worked with longtime reformer Tom Harkin to give Reid the political space he needed to pull the trigger.
Moulitsas gave major props to Daily Kos blogger and podcast host David Waldman for his longtime advocacy of the nuclear option. In February 2012, Dan McLaughlin at RedState.com accused Waldman of "Know-Nothing bigotry" and "simple hatemongering" for a series of tweets trashing the Catholic Church.
