NP: Tomahawk, Untitled

Andrew Sullivan has been both opining and fielding reader e-mails on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and their effect on national politics in light of Colbert entering the South Carolina primary.

I'm with the reader who says that you interpret The Daily Show and The Colbert Report as liberal shows/hosts at your own peril. I also wonder how many people in the Comedy Central demographic would be able to name, for instance, the Speaker of the House or the Attorney General without these shows. Saying that some people get "all their news" from Comedy Central only has negative connotations is that's versus getting it somewhere else, and if I may generalize for a moment, these are primarily people who think the Trib's RedEye rag here in Chicago qualifies as "news." You have a more politically aware audience as a result, but much like the Deanlet in 2004, it's defined by sitting at home, so tangible effects in the real world are tougher to suss out.

To that end, I've always wondered how Stewart, in particular, might exercise his influence in an actual election. He's not really in a good spot to come out and endorse someone, and to beg his viewers to actually vote for a change could lose his audience. So I think there's some sort of subversive ulterior motive going on here that we can't quite see in full quite yet. It may have been on Meet The Press that Colbert said he wanted to run in South Carolina to show how easy it is to get on the ballot. That's the first hint I've seen as to what this is really all about.