I’ve watched the Koufax Awards for all three years they’ve run and have been amazed how it’s mushroomed from one year to the next. But then I thought about comparing it to the Emmys or Academy Awards. There’s a finite number of Hollywood folk or nationally recognized musicians. Perhaps ten or twenty thousand of each, with maybe 1% having any shot at a prize.

Blogs number in the millions already. Of the progressive political blogs, I’d guess there’s 10 or 20 thousand already, so 1% of that is 100 to 200 bloggers with a shot at an award. And at this rate of growth, in a year or two, that 1% could easily be 1000 talented folks vying for a prize.

The amount of work Dwight and Marybeth and Eric had to do to work through the process this year was unreal. I tried to keep track just three days and with all the ways folks word their nominations, it required constant decision-making and a ton of work. I just can’t fathom what they’ll face in the next year or two - perhaps nervous breakdowns.

Did you know it costs $200 just to nominate someone for a Webby Award? Sure, that pays for an actual awards show, but it also reimburses the folks involved for their work. Other than tips that likely pay for bandwidth at best, the folks at Wampum take on their project as volunteers. I admire that. It’s gotta be a labor of love.

So why did I start the Perranoskis? My love’s in short supply, after all. Bloggers rant and snivel and whine and I already have my own teenagers to contend with. It’s not something that’ll make me popular, except among a handful of winners. As best as I can explain it, I did it because I’m a few keys shy of a keyboard, if you get my drift.

I worried I’d get snowed under, but in fact, I did such a pisspoor job spreading the word that the nominators and voters were surprisingly few. Less than 200 overall, counting the emails.

Thank God.

I had several aims, actually and a chief one was simply the recognition that there’s so many different kinds of talent that go into blogs. The bulk of it is writing, certainly, but with photobloggers and video creators and toonists and artists, there’s a lot of other content, too. And every year, commenters at Wampum note they wished this category or that existed.

So I decided to make a few more exist. I thought it’d be a novel experiment to see which categories would draw the most votes. Wampum had 13 this year, and I created 9 (though a couple were ones they’d had previously, like the Drysdale Award, for the best conservatives who engage us amicably in debate.) Based on the number who voted in the final round, I’d say 6 or 7 of the categories should continue.

Best Tech Achievement Blog was the least popular. Few were nominated and it drew the least number of votes. Either the political bloggers are not that interested in tech, or it just doesn’t fit their ideas of liberal progressivism. Best Moving Image Blog drew more votes, but the problem there was a shortage of people to nominate. If the awards continue next year, I’d likely roll this category in with the other artists and call it Best Non-Text Content Blog, or Best Other Media Blog.

That said, let’s move on to the prizewinners.

Best Investigative Research: I expected to see Orcinus in the running, and David Neiwert certainly drew the expected attention. Laura Rosen of War and Piece is another well established journalist, whose focus leans heavily to foreign policy, as her blog title implies. eRiposte also had its supporters for its topnotch election and election challenge coverage. Anna at Annatopia is another sharp writer I’ve enjoyed with a good bit of research evident in her work.

I’ve blogged with labor researcher/blogger Jordan Barab before, who focuses on worker health and safety issues at Confined Space. And one of the two newest blogs to my eyes, was ACSBlog, a group blog by members of the American Constitutional Society for law and policy, and their work deserves your attention.

Ultimately, though, the three strongest nominees were neck and neck throughout. Had two of them leaned on a few more readers, they could have won this. One was another fresh talent to my eyes: The Romanian, Soj, of Flogging the Simian, who will stay on my reading list for her reportage of global politics. The other two were highly visible to most political bloggers, providing critical information that had a regular impact on media coverage of the elections. And they almost tied, with just one vote separating them at the end.

Had there been several hundred voters, had I done a better job marketing, this could easily have gone the other way. Thus, in the spirit of magnamanity that Dwight has set, and considering the valuable contributions of both to the past election, I’m going to give the award to both Joshua Marshall of Talking Points Memo, and Bev Harris of Black Box Voting.

In the old media world that some persist in calling ‘mainstream’ when it’s anything but, I can only think of less than a dozen practicing journalists who contributed as much to the public understanding of the 2004 elections as these two did. We congratulate them both, and thank them.

Best Technical Achievement on a Political Blog: I would have guessed the creators of popular anti-spam plug-ins would have had a good chance here. Perhaps everyone’s waiting for the true killer app: a ray that jolts zombie extremist trolls who offer nothing but reverence toward neocon brutalities while trying to wish liberal bloggers out of the country.

Just two bloggers were nominated here, and both have assembled a blogging record that’s truly impressive. One was Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo, though frankly, I’m not sure why. In fact, a write-in drew more votes than Josh did.

That’d be Peter Daou of DAOU REPORT. Beginning as the liaison of the Kerry campaign to bloggers, and from bloggers back to the campaign, Peter’s aggregation effort when he launched his blog wasn’t based on algorithms, but on his own sense of quality information. And he didn’t confine it to the Left alone, as he includes the more pragmatic views from the Right.

For his fine effort, he’s already had his blog picked up by Salon, then turned around and landed another blogging opportunity in a greatly underreported area, covering all the positive work done by the UN worldwide, which the old media rarely covers. Those two achievements will have to suffice for his great efforts, as the winner ran away with this award.

You all know him as Kos, and his achievements, from the massive community at Daily Kos, to Political State Report, to other blogging and fundraising programs he was involved in, surely has been unparallelled in skippy’s blogtopia. Though a fair amount of complaints are heard when the highest stars pull in awards, for what Kos has achieved, and the crap he’s endured, and the projects he tries anew, he has never rested on his laurels, and he’s earned his way up that ladder. A warm congratulations to him from each of us at American Street.

Update: I learn something new every day. The operation of Political State Report, which Kos founded and established th