I have often wondered, that if a candidate was popular enough, why would he or she feel the need to have paid bloggers on their staff?  I mean, the netroots is full of bloggers who would happily support their candidate of choice in a heart beat.....no compensation necessary.  For example:  look at all of us.  Many of us have been blogging, hither & yon on the internet(s), since the Draft Clark days.  There is nothing we wouldn't do to increase the profile of our candidate in whichever forum happens to offer us a comment box to do it in.  And we have one of the most outstanding groups of first responders going.  No troll stands a chance against the likes of some of our homegrown Clarkies!

And yet, this band of loyal supporters has been built from the ground up, one Clarkie at a time.  No effort was put into it by anyone who happened to be on the payroll of General Wesley Clark.  We're all here because we want to be.  It's not a job to us.  It's something we feel we must do deep down in our soul.  We've discovered a man who we have the utmost confidence in when it comes to being able to lead this nation.  We're here because there's no place else we'd rather be.  And maybe we're not all as clever as the bloggers who do this for a living, but I would welcome this rag tag group in my corner any day of the week!

So, when I read through this piece in Salon today, I found myself nodding and saying, "Uh-huh.....yep."  When it comes to the idea of paid political bloggers, Lindsay Beyerstein seemed to have hit the nail on the head.  I've posted a few snippets below but I really think it's something that should be read in it's entirety.  It will enable each of you understand just how important a job you are doing when you are supporting Wes Clark by blogging here, there and everywhere.

Keep up the wonderful work, WesPeople!  You're efforts are obviously worth their weight in gold.  Just ask John Edwards.

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(As the poster, I have chosen to highlight a few of the more pertinent passages.)

Why I refused to blog for Edwards
Before Amanda Marcotte's short-lived tenure as blogger for the John Edwards campaign, I was offered the job. Here's why I said no.
By Lindsay Beyerstein

Feb. 26, 2007 | I am an atheist, but when Bill Donohue called the John Edwards bloggers "anti-Catholic, vulgar, trash-talking bigots," my first thought was, "There but for the grace of God go I."

I was offered a job blogging for John Edwards, but I declined.

<snip>

..........Unlike the liberal netroots, the right-wing blogosphere is capable of exactly one kind of collective political action. They call it "scalping" -- they pick a target and harass that person and his or her employer until the person either jumps or is pushed out of the public eye. Whoever blogged for Edwards was signing up for a lot of bad hair days, and it wasn't going to be me.

<snip>

..........I think the candidates who benefit the most from the netroots are the ones who can inspire bloggers to do their work for free. They create unpaid, unofficial surrogates. Webb is a netroots success story because his team captured the imagination of independent bloggers and online activists.

It was always clear that the netroots adopted Jim Webb, not the other way around. His people figured out a way to make the relationship work. Throughout the race, besides hiring Feld and Chernila, his staffers also diligently cultivated relationships with bloggers outside the campaign. The Webb team started taking the pulse of the larger blogosphere before the Democratic primary -- and their candidate's primary victory was due, in part, to intense Internet support.

<snip>

The Edwards campaign wants decentralized people-powered politics. Ironically, by hiring well-known bloggers to manage a destination Web site, it was actually centralizing and micromanaging. Every campaign needs a blog, but the most important part of a candidate's netroots operation is the disciplined political operatives who can quietly build relationships with bloggers outside the campaign. And the bomb-throwing surrogates need to be outside, where they can make full use of their gifts without saddling a campaign with their personal political baggage.

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And I play if you have the money
Or if youre a friend to me
But the one man band
By the quick lunch stand
He was playing real good, for free.  --  Joni Mitchell