The MOB is out to get Franken, and others

Interesting article on the impact of blogs on Minnesota politics. The Minnesota Organization of Bloggers (MOB) can make it difficult for any politician to loosen up.
Against Dems:

On a laptop at a kitchen table in this cheery Twin Cities suburb, headlines ripping into Al Franken, the satirist whose campaign for the United States Senate is seen as one of the most competitive in the nation, are written up day after day for Minnesota Democrats Exposed, a political blog created by a former Republican Party researcher.

Michael B. Brodkorb, the blog’s creator, has worked on the campaigns of some of this state’s top Republicans. Mr. Brodkorb’s critics say the Web site’s claims, screamed in red uppercase letters, are often breathless, far-fetched and painfully partisan.

But Minnesota Democrats Exposed has dealt several blows to Mr. Franken’s campaign lately: revelations that he owed $25,000 to the State of New York for failing to pay workers’ compensation insurance and that his corporation was in forfeiture in California.

And against incumbent GOP Senator Coleman:

Eric Pusey’s liberal-leaning mnblue, for instance, tracks Mr. Coleman’s moves on a “Weasel Meter.” Some blog live from the smallest of political meetings and the forgotten campaign stops. Enough of these writers have cropped up here now to make a Minnesota Organization of Bloggers, better known here as the Mob. “We’ve kind of got a center of gravity going on up here,” said Mitch Berg, one in a group that started a True North Web site in 2007.