This week, Hillary Clinton did something she rarely ever does: She engaged the online community in a conversation. On Tuesday, Clinton penned a post titled "Equal Pay, Equal Respect" at the progressive blog FireDogLake, and then stuck around for about 30 minutes to chat about it.

Clinton is perhaps realizing the error of her previous ways. To this point in her campaign she has largely ignored the progressive netroots, and as a result has finished poorly in blog polls, consistently garnering only single-digit support and often placing lower than even Dennis Kucinich. (See Tom's post about the significance of these polls.) Meanwhile, Barack Obama and John Edwards, who have both excelled online, filed impressive first quarter fundraising numbers and have chipped away at Clinton's aura of invincibility in both national and local primary polls.

But that Clinton is finally engaging bloggers isn't the most interesting part of her new strategy. The most interesting part is the who, what and where of that strategy. Traditionally, netroot Democrats -- including Obama, Edwards, Ned Lamont, Jon Tester and my old boss Jim Webb -- have helped grow and maintain their online support by posting diaries at Daily Kos. The logic here is simple. With over 600,000 visitors a day, Daily Kos is by far the most trafficked of any political blog and easiest way for a Democratic candidate to create a worthwhile conversation with progressive activists.

But Clinton has never posted a diary at Daily Kos, which only begs the question: Why would she proactively avoid recreating the success of other recent candidates? And the most likely the answer is, because Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos -- aka "Kos" -- hates her.

The top result of a google search of "Markos Moulitsas" AND "Hillary Clinton" turns up a Op/Ed Kos wrote in the Washington Post in May, 2006 titled "Too much of a Clinton Democrat?" In it, he is not too fond of either Clinton:

Hillary Clinton leads her Democratic rivals in the polls and in fundraising. Unfortunately, however, the New York senator is part of a failed Democratic Party establishment -- led by her husband -- that enabled the George W. Bush presidency and the Republican majorities, and all the havoc they have wreaked at home and abroad.

And after Clinton refused to apologize for her vote authorizing the war in Iraq in February of this year, Kos wrote:

Not only is the Clinton campaign pig-headed, they are also remarkably out-of-touch. They are "surprised" at the anger this war is generating? Has she been living in a cave the last four years (yes, the Senate apparently is a cave). The last thing we need in the White House is another out-of-touch, tone-deaf Bush-style presidency, unable or unwilling to admit mistakes and change course as a result.

Hillary will now see her campaign events hijacked by anti-war protesters, with people demanding she defend her vote at every corner. Iraq will dominate coverage of her campaign, and she's on the wrong side of the issue. And by going this far without admitting her mistake, she has painted herself into a corner. Any attempt now to back off and apologize would be met with the proper scorn.

For Hillary, No amount of nuance will make this issue go away.

Today she lost my potential vote. I doubt I'm the only person in this position. Thankfully, as Hillary so helpfully pointed out, the rest of the field 1) didn't make the mistake to begin with, or 2) aren't afraid to admit their mistakes

Realizing that Kossacks may not be the most receptive group to her message, Clinton went smaller. With about 60,000 visitors a day, FireDogLake is a tenth the size of Daily Kos, but nonetheless a respectable sized audience. But perhaps more importantly, the founder and most substantive bloggers on FireDogLake are women. So even though Equal Pay hasn't been a top ten issue for a while, it makes sense for Clinton, as the only woman running for President, to try to move her online campaign out of neutral by having a conversation with women about women, even if it means less exposure.

It will be interesting to see over the next few months whether Clinton, new strategy in hand, can generate any hint of internet support. But it may be the case that the disdain for her in the liberal blogosphere -- for her style, her vote on the war, and her refusal to apologize for that vote -- is so great that even a perfect internet plan would fail.