GO FIGURE: Traffic on Daily Kos Decreasing As Primaries Approach? Well, Kos has been pretty thoroughly co-opted, and become part of the Democratic establishment himself, which no doubt makes the site seem less fresh and interesting.

UPDATE: An alternate explanation: “Daily Kos is less fresh and interesting than in the past. But that’s because Kos hasn’t been as active there. He has stretched himself thin by taking on columns for establishment media outlets like Newsweek and The Hill. He’s also the father of two children as of April. . . . The Kos brand is languishing because the blogger is the brand and the blogger has more than his blog to feed these days.” That’s a good point, though of course the two aren’t entirely inconsistent.

Meanwhile, Mickey Kaus wonders if it’s General Petraeus’s fault: “I was at a very nice left-wing party over the holidays and the youthful antiwar types were saying that traffic was down on all the left-wing sites because of … Iraq. … That’s not what I said. It’s what they said. … Iraq just isn’t as salient now that it doesn’t seem to be spiraling into apocalypse. . . . Of course, some right-wing sites seem to be experiencing a mild decline since August also. Maybe the whole blogosphere was about Iraq!” Hmm. InstaPundit traffic is up considerably since August. But then, InstaPundit has a somewhat broader focus than just politics and Iraq. Come for the war, stay for the nanotechnology! And the gadgets! And the science fiction recommendations! And the podcasts . . . .