Does Politics.ie have any influence on anything?

[Toland]

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[truthisfree]

I used to abhor Fine Gael now I only hold them in mild contempt .

touché

[iartaoiseach]

Clearly its owner has played an important role in halting the view that progress towards European Integration is enevitable and has fought the establishment leaving it isolated from its suport base and has fought one hell of a campaign..., yada yada yada

And it has a few posters in position of prominance and influence, particularly in the Green Party, certainly at least one senator and two councillors that I know of (but I am quite slow in picking these things up). There may be more.

From the Labour Party, well there's Cllr, who is outspoken and independently minded and always worth a read.

Sean Dorgan had a look at what was going on at this site, just before it re-hosted on the other side of the pond. And they are a few OFF people and potentail candidates for 2009.

I haven't noticed any FG'ers of note (although each FG obviously views themselves as being important).

Certainly the odd journo hack has checked in from time to time, if short of a story they can usually find the odd (some very odd) one here, eg teh Fire in Ahern's hotel story, the re-hosting libel row and there was one or two others.

Main point:
At the end of the day, there are 69 users online now, the most number of users on at the same time was 10.30 on Friday the 13th as people checked in for the Referendum results, where there were a whopping 420 users. Most appeared to be firmly committed (many should be committed) to one side or the other, but yet they engaged in repititious mud-slinging (sorry debates) after the votes had been cast. Some posters appear to have single transferable posts, which get supplanted whatever the context (eg Keyword Ahern).

My questions are: 1) who is listening (or to be pedantic, reading?).
2) Have views expressed on this site, ever influenced any person who has actaul influence/power?
3) In the great scheme of things, does a site which has over 10,000 members of which only 420 are on at the same time, have any influence in a media world dominated by O'Reilly (press) and O'Brien (radio)?
4) What has Politices.ie ever done for us?

Its either P.ie or my foot through the telly. or maybe i'd go postal altogether and kill em all.