• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, February 13, 2007

After more than a week of relentless pressure from the right wing, blogger Amanda Marcotte has resigned from John Edwards' presidential campaign.

Although the Democratic candidate for president declined to fire her last week, Catholic League President Bill Donohue was determined to keep the matter alive, scrutinizing Marcotte's every word and then using her writings against Edwards.

The post that finally led to her resignation was a review of the movie "Children of Men" on her personal blog, Pandagon. "The Christian version of the virgin birth is generally interpreted as super-patriarchal, where God is viewed as so powerful he can impregnate without befouling himself by touching a woman, and women are nothing but vessels," she wrote, according to press accounts (the site was down this morning).

Donohue responded with a statement reiterating his complaints about Marcotte. She resigned before Edwards officially responded.

Last week, the former North Carolina senator said that some of the writing on Marcotte's blog -- as well as that of a second blogger hired by the campaign, Melissa McEwan -- "personally offended me." But, he said, he wasn't forcing them out because he believes "in giving everyone a fair shake."

But it was only a matter of time until Marcotte left; it seems highly unlikely that McEwan will last long either.

The reality is, bloggers and politicos aren't a natural fit. Politicians go out of their way to avoid offending anyone, so much so that it's hard for many voters to know what the candidates' positions even are. Many bloggers -- especially ones with large followings -- are aggressively opinionated. Rather than watering down their views, they tend towards overstatement, presenting their arguments in a style more inflammatory than is politic.