Rusty Introduces Reality to the Blogosphere

In the battle of the blogsphere, I must say I have been impressed by the recent growth of the Pro-Hilleary bloggers. Just a month ago, the only man defending Van's honor on the blogs was Charles Badger and his http://vanwagon.blogspot.com site. Recently, though, Van secured the endorsement of Team GOP's Jeff Ward and Rick Patterson started a pro-Van blog called VanFans http://vanfans.blogspot.com. He also has another friend, although she claims to be unaffiliated with any candidate, in Ashley's new http://oneconservativenow.blogspot.com space.

No candidate running for US Senate in Tennessee has more blogs dedicated to seeing their election than Van Hilleary.

The next logical question is why? Why did this happen? Why are the TN conservative Netroots starting to coalesce around the candiacy of Van Hilleary? Does Jeff Ward's endoresment have this much pull? Or are the conservatives in Tennessee beginning to realize if they have any hope of keeping the nomination out of the hands of Bob Corker and has pro-choice/higher taxes/bigger government record than the most get behind Van Hilleary?

They must get behind Van, because despite the hardwork of Ed Bryant and his dutiful blogger Jay Bush, the fact remains that Ed Bryant is in a fundraising rut and maintains very mediocre name ID? Word is that this all may hit a head this week when Ed Bryant releases his Year-End numbers. If it is as bad as some expect, people are talking about the possibility of members of Tennessee Right to Life putting pressure on Brian Harris to withdrawl their endorsement of Ed Bryant. That would be a dagger to their campaign?

No matter how you slice. It's been a bad couple weeks for Ed, but Van has felt the positive residual effects of Bryant's slide.