Some on the left are expressing vague concerns that after the primary, whether Ned wins or not, the people in Washington are going to start looking at us bloggers in a whole new light.  They will see us as the people who helped kick start the campaign of a virtual unknown who took out a fat and happy sitting incumbent senator, or at the very least, the people who helped Ned Lamont make Lieberman fight for his seat which he barely hung on to by a whisker.

It isn’t really true, of course.  If Ned is victorious, it will be because the people of Connecticut, the regular non-blogging voting people, were dissatisfied, and when offered an alternative, they took it.    But, of course, the tone-deaf Washington elite will be quick to assume that bloggers were the magical X-factor who made the race possible.  Why?  Because that’s a hell of a lot easier than accepting that everything they know about doing business and shaping policy is wrong.

I imagine it will be kind of like when the Sex Pistols hit number one on the British charts with "God Save the Queen" in spite of being banned altogether from the airwaves.  When that happened, the calcified British record industry sat up and took notice, finally, of a phenomenon they had been doing everything they could to ignore, punk rock.  Up to that point, EMI, A&M, RCA and all the other big labels had been assiduously pumping money into massive, over-inflated art-rock projects like Yes and Pink Floyd, sure that this punk thing would die out soon.  Just another fad, Neville.  Ignore it.  Maybe it will go away.

Then suddenly, the Pistols were selling records faster than the label could make them.  The moss-backs at the labels saw that there was money to be made, here, and overnight, every punk band in London woke up to find a well-dressed A&R man waiting outside their shitty practice space holding a contract, begging them to sign.

"But TRex," you may ask, "What does this have to do with blogging in the hard, cold light of this year of our lord, 2006?"

Well, expect blog to be the new black.  (That’s black CLOTHING I’m talking about, MalKKKinites, before you get your racially charged panties in a wad.)  All those DC consultants, all those ’08 hopefuls, all those dull-as-dishwater stuffed shirts in conference rooms all across the capital will cry, "Find us a blogger!  We need a blogger or this campaign is DOOMED!"

If everything goes according to plan, they will wine us, dine us, send us on junkets, and offer us fat paychecks to do what we’ve been doing for free all along, just as long as we make their candidate look good.  And frankly, that suits me just fine.  I’m sick of being poor and underappreciated.  Sure, I’ll sell out!  No problem!  Where do I sign?

Ah, but it’s going to cost you.  I am a TRex with very expensive tastes.  If you beltway insiders come knocking on my cave entrance, be warned.  Bring your checkbook.  And a fat wad of cash.  Be prepared to offer me annuities, some kind of long-term, six-figure, cushy deal.  And shoes.  I’m going to need a lot of shoes.  And I feel it’s only fair to warn you that shoes for these big sauropod feets do not come cheap.

Yeah, that’s right, kids.  Here’s some advice from yer good ol’ Uncle Rex.  If you’re going to sell out, sell out for more money than you can possibly spend in a lifetime.  Get yourself a nice piece of land and a house that looks like a castle.  If they’re going to be dumb enough to shower you in cash and prizes, get the good stuff.  And enjoy your status as a noble savage.  They want you to be edgy.  Put your big old boots up on their $10,000 coffee tables.  Storm out of meetings.  Be "difficult".  When you look back on it from your death bed someday, you’ll be proud that you were an incorrigible enfant terrible.  Like the Buttlhole Surfers said, "It’s better to regret something you have done than something you haven’t done."

And that’s all I have tonight, Firedoggies!  This flesh-eating menace has to pack!  See you in CT!!

(Special thanks to reader medaka for reminding me how much I love this X-Ray Spex song!)