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Created by Open from American Express. Registration at OpenForum Online.com. From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. When political pundits look for bellwether elections, they rarely look in Connecticut. But they did Tuesday when Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman lost to challenger Ned Lamont,

largely over the issue of the war, which Lieberman supported and Lamont did not. Some say it was

a referendum on the president. Some say it was a referendum on Lieberman. Some say it was a referendum on

the community of online liberal activists called the NetRoutes, which backed Lamont.

We wanted to know what Clay Shirky says. He writes frequently on the impact of the virtual world on our real lives, and he joins us now.

Welcome to the show.

Thanks very much.

So, Ned Lamont, Best's Lieberman in Connecticut's Democratic primary by four points and the net roots declare victory.

Should they?

Yes, partially.

I mean, one of the interesting things that we saw up there is what you might call the end of causation.

In the old days, it was really easy to say, well, the blogosphere did this or the blogosphere did that because it stood so separately from the rest of the political establishment.

...