In this past election, at least a few prominent bloggers were paid as consultants by candidates and groups they regularly blogged about ...

On Dean's campaign, we paid Markos and Jerome Armstrong as consultants, largely in order to ensure that they said positive things about Dean. We paid them over twice as much as we paid two staffers of similar backgrounds, and they had several other clients.

While they ended up also providing useful advice, the initial reason for our outreach was explicitly to buy their airtime.

They should have paid Markos to shut up.

UPDATE. Full disclosure from Marko$:

For the record, I will not discuss my role within the Dean campaign, other than to say it's technical, not message or strategy. I will also not discuss any of my other clients, including their identities ...

[cough] Halliburton [cough]