TWIB Notes

Welcome to the first edition of This Week In Blogs (TWIB) Notes which will run every Friday afternoon. Each week this space will try and take a step back from the everyday din of the blogosphere to look at trends, highlight a significant blogger debate, or take a broad survey of Election '06 developments from around the web.

This week we wanted to come up with a list of bloggers' bloggers, i.e. who the best bloggers are reading. First we needed a blogger panel, so we combed through the Feedster 500 and sent a personal invite to every blog on the list with a political bent. Fiftyseven bloggers ended up responding to our invitation and their names are below.

Each panelist was allowed to rank ten of their favorite sites. First place rankings received ten points, second place rankings received nine, etc. Below are the final results of our first blogger poll, an item we hope to run once a month. Total points for each site are in parentheses.

BloggersChoice Poll

1.	Instapundit (150)
2.	Talking Points Memo (111)
3.	Michelle Malkin (101)
4.	Eschaton (88)
5.	The Corner (79)
6.	The Political Animal (69)
7.	Crooks and Liars (56)
8t.	Hullabaloo (54)
8t.	firedoglake (54)
8t.	The Huffington Post (54)
11t.	Hugh Hewitt (50)
11t.	Powerline (50)
13.	DailyKos (46)
14.	Ace of Spades (40)
15.	Hit and Run (39)
16.	Volokh (37)
17t.	Informed Comment (36)
17t.	Outside the Beltway (36)
19.	Politicalwire (35)
20. 	littlegreenfootballs (30)
21.	AMERICAblog (29)
22.	The Moderate Voice (29)
23. 	Kausfiles (25)
24t.	RedState (24)
24t.	ThinkProgress (24)

A couple of surprises from the list. First, there are a number blogs from both sides of the aisle that are daily must-reads for the Blogometer that did not make this list. The Blogometer guesses that these blogs are either too specialized or are too independent to have a natural constituency in the highly partisan blogosphere. Second, the comparatively weak showing of DailyKos considering what an absolute monster the site is traffic wise.

Next week TWIB Notes will look at the debate surrounding Michael Tomasky's "Party In Search of A Notion." The Blogometer already has plenty of material on the matter but is always eager to read more.

Our panel included: Ace O'Spades, Andrew Sullivan, Angrey Bear, Arianna Huffington, Atrios of Eschaton, My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, Brad R of Sadly No, Leiter Reports, CJR Daily, Edward Morrisey of Captain's Quarters, Charles Johnson of littlegreenfootballs, Tim Cavanaugh of Hit and Run, Dan Drezner, Orcinus, David Sirota, Swing State Project, Dean's World, Digby of Hullablaoo, hilzoy at Obsidian Wings, Erick-Woods Erickson at RedState, Frank at IMAO, General JC at Jesus' General, Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, Greyhawk at Mudville Gazzette, Gullyborg at Resistance if futile!, Hugh Hewitt, Expose the Left, Riehl World View, Dr. James Joyner at Outside the Beltway, JR at PressThink, Jessica at Feministing, Joe at evangelical outpost, Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice, John Hawkins at RightWingNews, John Henke at QandO, Mark Kleiman at Reality based Community, Janie at News Hounds, Norm at onegoodmove, PoliPundit, Scott Johnson at Powerline, Rob from Say Anything, Roger L. Simon, Rude Pundit, The Jawa Report, The Cassandra Page, Steve Soto from The Left Coaster, Professor Bainbridge, Steve Clemens of The Washington Note, Taegan Goddard's Political Wire, Jeralyn at TalkLeft, Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report, TomDispatch, Eugene Volokh, Will Franklin of Willisms, and Wonkette.