I blog, you blog, we all blog: state lawmakers are beginning to see the advantages of having a blog to record their views on issues and their experiences at the statehouse.

• Author: Greenberg, Pam

Representative Ray Cox does not consider himself particularly computer savvy. In 2002, he had just won election to the Minnesota House by 20 votes in a very competitive race--his district leans Democrat and he's a Republican. He wanted a way to reach out and interact with his constituents, so he did what few others would have done in that situation--he started a blog.

Blogs--short for "Web logs"--are online public journals documenting a person's daily thoughts, experiences and positions on issues. Cox, who didn't use the Internet much and thought most Web pages were cold and impersonal, heard about blogs from a friend who, after a bit of coaxing, got him up and running.

He had expected his opponents might use his blog entries against him in the 2004 election, and indeed, "they were pretty brutal," Cox says. He won reelection, however, by 600 votes, which he considers a huge margin in his district. "In this kind of race it's even more important to use the blog to get the information out to voters, and to get it to them in a timely fashion."

Blogs first appeared about a decade ago, but they gained prominence in the 2004 presidential elections as a vehicle for candidates and pundits reporting on the elections. Howard Dean used the Internet, and his Blog for America, to raise more money than any other Democratic candidate. Blogs are said to have influenced the stock market on election day, based on their (inaccurate) reporting of early exit poll results. The power of blogs also became evident when blogs exposed CBS News' false reporting about President Bush's National Guard documents.

According to a Pew Internet and American Life Project survey, 32 million Americans were blog readers by the end of 2004. The survey also found that 62 percent of Internet users were not quite sure what the term "blog" means. But that's changing: Blog readership grew 58 percent just during 2004. Seven percent of users--some 8 million people--have created their own biog. And there is some evidence that those who read and write blogs may be more politically influential than average citizens.

State lawmakers are beginning to see the advantages of having a blog to record their views on issues and their experiences at the statehouse. Although there's no official count of the number of state legislators with blogs, the Minnesota House may be able to claim more than any other state. Several House members were among the first in the nation to have blogs, including...