In an obviously coordinated attack on Republican Jane Norton, bloggers supporting Democrat Michael Bennet and, most likely a few amatures who are supporting Republicans Ken Buck and Tom Wiens, are showing how the comments sections of blogs can be used to spew hatred and lies about their political opponents. These attack artists are making Tea Party activists look like pacifists.

While I can’t prove it, I strongly suspect that 

some of the anonymous commenters who are attacking Norton are paid by opposing campaigns and outside groups that are supporting other candidates. Bloggers who can write like the attackers do make big money working for well-financed campaigns. After they launch attacks, amateurs pile on.

The tone of the attacks is vicious. They look and feel like what you see every day on the left-wing’s http://www.Coloradopols.com. And the attacks are being supported by the left-wing’s http://www.HuffingtonPost.com, which has a big anti-Norton headline that serves as a link to The Spot’s story about Norton’s hiring of Josh Penry as her new campaign manager. The Huffingtons’s headline is not supported by Allison Sherry’s report. A headline writer simply is making a statement and editorializing. That’s typical for the HP web site. That the attackers are posting on the Denver Post’s The Spot shows that The Spot has replaced Coloradopols.com as the top political blog in Colorado.

What this means is clear. The Democrats are very worried about Norton. They want to define and destroy her before she can define and defeat Michael Bennet. It’s standard operating procedure for Obama Democrats who are backing Bennet. Similar attacks on Coloradopols.com were used in 2006 to help destroy Republican Bob Beauprez during his ill-fated contest with Governor Bill Ritter. However, online attacks on Barack Obama and John McCain during the 2008 primaries failed to stop them from winning their partys’ nominations.

While the blogs may be read mostly by Democrat activists, they give those activists talking points that they use as they campaign on the street and online for their candidates. With the rise of FaceBook.com and Twitter, such viral political demarketing campaigns can be leveraged and spread across the Internet almost instantly by paid political bloggers and their amateur allies.

The question is, will Norton’s campaign fight back? Or will it let the Democrats and some GOP opponents define her?

UPDATE: Check out the anti-Ken Buck comment that follows my report on Penry’s appointment, which also appears on http://www.peoplespresscollective.com. We’re all waiting for Buck’s campaign to reply to L Reader’s long comment. Whether L Reader is a Norton supporter or just doesn’t like Buck is not clear to me. As I recently blogged, I think Buck runs a pretty fiscally conservative DA’s office. I haven’t blogged on his career or legal decisions as a DA because others know more about that than I do.