American politics is about to become even dirtier and more trivial, thanks to the blogosphere, the efforts of candidates to harness it, and the ambitions of extreme, foul-mouthed bloggers, be they left-wing or right wing. We had foretastes of this in 2004 and again in 2006. With the enormous growth of the blogosphere since the last presidential election, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Well, actually, we’ve started to see it.

While I don’t consider John Edwards to be a “left-winger” and haven’t been following his (or any other) campaign closely, the media reports I’ve seen seem to agree that he’s positioned himself further to the left than any of the other Democratic candidates. It makes sense, then, that the former senator would adopt a “no enemies to the left” strategy to prevent any of his rivals from successfully executing an end-around on him.

As part of his strategy, Edwards hired a couple of rather outspoken women to run his online campaign. It’s safe to say that their politics — and their way of expressing their politics — are further to the left than his. This makes perfect political sense as a tactic to gain the favor of the most liberal Democratic voters.

It’s also a safe bet that one or more of the Republican candidates will mimic Edwards’ strategy (no enemies to the right) and tactics (by hiring bloggers further to the right than they are). Their politics and their expletive-laden words will certainly see the light of day, and the right side of the blogosphere will be pointing accusing fingers, as the left side is now.

I suspect that these efforts to lock up the extreme left and the extreme right for the presidential primaries will backfire. In both parties, candidates closer to the center will have a guilt-by-association field-day. Just think about pre-primary debates involving a dozen or so Democrats or Republicans. With that many faces on the stage, each will have a very limited amount of time to speak — not enough to spell out in anything other than superficial generalities his or her agenda.

What to do in such a circumstance? Attack the most left-wing (Democrats) or right-wing (Republican) candidate, of course. Attack their greatest vulnerablities. What might these be? The blogs of their opponents’ online chieftains, whose views are more extreme and less tastefully stated than either the candidate’s or the candidate’s supporters in the mainstream media. Rest assured than every candidate is now having his or her staff pour over every word blogged by the opponents’ web generals (and saving their blogs on their own computers, just in case they happen to be edited or erased). Ah, what fertile soil for mud-slinging!

Negative campaigning has long been a steadily growing curse, as has the increasing polarization of our polity. The new-found fame of bloggers who have attracted large followings by using words as weapons instead of as expressions of thought will hopefully reverse these trends by causing a widespread revulsion. If the rise of the blogosphere results in a weakening of both extremes of the political spectrum, it will have done the country a service.

Cross-posted at American Future.