November 13, 2002 Inside Politics

Greg Pierce

He was first to report President Clinton's dalliance with a certain White House intern, and his Web site is a daily must-see for about 4 million people — including many top Washington reporters. After Voter News Service announced last week that computers had scrambled its exit-poll data, election night found many journalists "reduced to logging onto the Web site of the gossip columnist Matt Drudge" to get results, according to the New York Times. Though the Wall Street Journal has called him "a born loser," Mr. Drudge keeps succeeding. His Web site, www.drudgereport.com, crossed a landmark yesterday by racking up its 1 billionth — that's billion with a "b" — visitor this year. "In every state and nearly every civilized nation in the developed world, readers know where to go for action and reaction of news — at least one day ahead," Mr. Drudge announced yesterday. "Those in power have everything to lose by individuals who march to their own rules." A 1984 graduate of Montgomery Blair High School, Mr. Drudge got his start in the news business delivering the old Washington Star. He moved to California, and later began his Web site with a $1,500 Packard Bell computer his father had bought him. He got national attention in 1996, when he was the first to report that Jack Kemp would be Republican Bob Dole's vice presidential running mate. Roy's rout

Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes says his political career is over, and blames his historic defeat on a nationwide Republican surge and his decision last year to change the state's flag. Republican Sonny Perdue soundly defeated Mr. Barnes last week. The flag change — which shrank a large Confederate emblem to a tiny spot — "became a symbol for everything that anybody didn't like," Mr. Barnes told Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporters Jim Galloway and Duane D. Stanford. "About Atlanta, about any change that had occurred. It energized and helped the surge."

The governor "said he's done with politics for good," according to the Atlanta reporters. Mr. Barnes had been touted as a possible Democratic presidential or vice presidential candidate in 2004, but after the Nov. 5 defeat, former Clinton aide John Podesta tells the Christian Science Monitor: "I'd say Roy Barnes's chances are fading."

-- Anonymous, November 13, 2002