By hiring Patrick Hynes as his blog outreach adviser, John McCain has become the latest politician to decide reaching out to political blogs will be important in the next presidential election. The 34-year-old Hynes, who runs a blog called anklebitingpundits.com, had already helped McCain with a posting on the site porkbusters that was well-received earlier this month, but said he reached a formal agreement to work on McCain's PAC Straight Talk America last week. Hynes, a political consultant who was once political director of the New Hampshire Republican Party and has worked on several successful congressional campaigns, said he planned to work on both blogs and social networking sites for the pac. But he found himself in a controversy this week, as some other bloggers questioned why Hynes had not disclosed his relationship with McCain earlier, particularly when he had criticized Massachusetts Governor and likely 2008 GOP contender Mitt Romney.

Mark Warner and Hillary Clinton are among the pols and potential presidential contenders who have hired blog outreach advisers. But those hirings were obvious; the liberal political blogs, particularly Daily Kos, have grown in power and influence in the Democratic Party. And for Clinton, at least attempting to appease some of the liberal bloggers, who hate her stance on the Iraq War, is very important. No conservative blog has yet grown to the power of Kos partly because, with Republicans in power, there's not as much need to use a blogs as a powerful organizing tool. So while Kossacks are is talking about hosting a presidential debate before 2008, no one is expecting InstaPundit, RedState or Hugh Hewitt, a conservative blogger and talk radio host, to have that kind of influence. On the hand, Hynes may have some work to do in terms of building up McCain's reputation on the right. Hewitt has already been critical of McCain and conservative bloggers, like their liberal counterparts, tend to be more ideological and partisan than traditional voters and may not like McCain's moderate record on some issues as they consider a potential Republican nominee.

McCain aides aren't exactly sure how this will play out either. Mike Dennehy, a McCain adviser, said of outreach to blogs, "I think it's going to be very important, but to be honest, it's still debatable how that importance develops." But Dennehy said he expected McCain would continue to look for conservative blogs to post to.

—Perry Bacon Jr.