The List (No, Not the Washington Post's)

by: Isaac Smith

Wed Jan 02, 2008 at 09:00 AM EST

Michael Swartz's list of local blogs to watch in 2008 is pretty good. It is missing a few good blogs of note, however:

• Lost on the Shore: Tom Wilson's blog posts are more traditional op-ed pieces than the link-heavy and blockquote-heavy bits that usually make up the blogosphere, and like op-ed pieces, only appear a few times a week. But they're always worth your time; I especially recommend his recent series of posts on the Chesapeake Bay.
• Crablaw's Maryland Weekly: Like Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Godfrey was born to run, er, blog. He went on hiatus a few months back, but recently brought back his blog in Drupal format, and is as delightfully acerbic as ever.
• Blog Arundel: As the name implies, this blog is focused on Anne Arundel County issues, particularly relating to sprawl and development. But the person writing as N.D. Sproll (ha ha) has a very engaging and insightful voice.
• Kevin Dayhoff: I find his actual blog hard to read -- its look is extremely busy and most of the posts are just link aggregations -- but I'm including it here because I find his writing on political issues, while certainly conservative, thoughtful.
• Newsrack: Thomas Nephew blogs mostly on national issues, but his local blogging is also quite good, particularly on Takoma Park and voting reform.
  
• Jay Hancock: The Baltimore Sun's business columnist does a lot of good writing on electricity and energy issues in Maryland, and on Maryland's political economy in general.
• Bay and Environment: Another Sun blog, B&E is a great complement to the Sun's print articles on environmental issues, both in Maryland and beyond.
• Maryland Moment: One reason why blogs won't likely replace mainstream reporting is that it's usually hard for part-timers and amateurs to travel from place to place to report on news events as they're happening. The Washington Post's Maryland politics blog is a good example: I'd like to not poach from it as often as I do, but then, no one pays me to blog full-time.
• Maryland on My Mind: Bernie Hayden doesn't have a laser-like focus on political issues, but when he does talk politics, it's a good read. (He also coined my favorite new phrase, "The Free-Lunch Libertarian Nativist Party" -- you can guess what that describes.)
• Wryoak: See my previous thoughts on this blog.
  

Let me also pour the proverbial 40 for some blogs that have either disappeared to else been on hiatus for a long, long time:

• The League Reassembled: Ah, remember the League of Spiritual Discovery? They were great -- one of the few blogs that could pull off very stylized political commentary without coming off as cloying or cute. Unapologetically left, but keeping a safe distance from the Democratic establishment in Maryland, I often have the League in the back of my mind as a model when I write blog posts.
• Outside the Beltway: Before he got snatched up by the General Assembly, Mike Raia kept a pretty good blog -- more activist in tone than me, but usually quite smart and informative.
• Jousting for Justice: Another blogger with a literary voice, Stephanie Dray wrote some pretty good stuff on Maryland politics, much of it in support of Martin O'Malley. Her occasional series, "My Liberal Heresies," was also interesting and thought-provoking.
• MoCoPolitics: If Swartz thinks this blog does "smack-talk," he should troll through MCP's archives. Unafraid to go after Republicans and Democrats (a necessary trait for a Maryland blogger), the MCP bloggers were everything bloggers should be: incisive, blunt, witty, and self-deprecating.
• HoyerBlog: This was a great idea -- keep a running commentary on the activities of Maryland's most senior congressman and no. 2 official in the House of Representatives, Steny Hoyer. The fellow who started it, however, abandoned it after a few days. Someone with a one-track mind (certainly not me) ought to pick it up.

So that's my list. One last thing I'll note is something readily apparent to many readers: There are a lot more right-wing blogs in Maryland than there are left-wing blogs. Blogging, of course, is an anti-establishment phenomenon, so it makes sense that in a strongly Democratic state you would have a lot of right-wing bloggers up in arms. At the same time, I don't think it's fair to say that left bloggers in Maryland are pro-establishment, in the sense that we're concerned with advancing the interests of the Democratic Party as a whole in the state. Rather, we're more about particular issues -- progressive taxation or same-sex marriage, say -- and getting those issues recognized and acted on. I don't want to be in the position of defending Democrats even when they're wrong, so I've been careful of late not to get sucked into cheerleading or even the advocacy usually associated with the netroots (Donna Edwards being an exception). In other words, I think the Maryland progressive blogosphere is more ideological than partisan -- there's little need to (or interest in) defending a party that more often is divided against itself than against the opposition. Given the weakness of that opposition, that's likely to remain the case.

PS: The List mentioned in the title can be found here.