Yeah, Drudge has had a 24/7 CONSTANT anti-Newt assault going on.
Getting pretty sick of it, myself.
Matt Drudge: world's most powerful journalist
For politicians, the effect is akin to a needle injecting information into the media bloodstream. A positive story can give a shot of adrenaline to a flagging campaign. More commonly, negative information can be like a dose of poison being administered.
It has been Republicans who have most assiduously courted Drudge, a conservative populist who passionately opposes abortion and despises taxes. Research directors of the Republican National Committee have made pilgrimages to Miami to pay homage to Drudge.
A 2005 dinner at the fashionable Miami steakhouse Forge in which Tim Griffin, the outgoing RNC research director, introduced his successor Matt Rhoades to Drudge is already the stuff of political lore. Rhoades went on to become communications supremo to Mitt Romney, whose opponents in the 2008 presidential race noted frequently that negative stories about them appeared regularly on Drudge.