MyDD's Chris Bowers (HT Galley Slaves) looks at the conservative blogosphere vs. the liberal blogosphere, and he decides that the liberal blogs have ascended beyond the conservative blogs because, basically, the liberal blogs are inclusionary mini-communities, while the conservative blogs are exclusionary of any voices other than the author's. That's a pretty broad brush to paint with. For example, I could say that the tendency towards individual blogs for conservatives/libertarians is due to the fact that those bloggers have much deeper ingrained sense of self reliance and a highly developed entreneurial spirit, which leads them to stake out their own piece of turf, whereas the the liberal bloggers tend more to need a safety network of people around them who will not contradict their beliefs, but rather reinforce them in a chamber of nearly infinite echoes. Or I could say that liberal bloggers have a need for instant gratification, hence community blogs where they get instant traffic off of the work of others, whereas conservatives/libertarian blogs are willing to put in the work to create their own legion of readers. You see, I could say that, but I won't, mostly because I don't have any more facts for that hypothesis than Bowers does for his. Anyone can put a meaning to numbers, and what Bowers attaches to his numbers is mostly conjecture and stereotypes.
There is one obvious reason Bowers doesn't even consider for why liberal blog traffic has exploded. Liberals are the 'loyal opposition' right now, if you will. Since being the opposition is to be in a generally roused state, they have a natural, environmental traffic advantage.
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