As Harris and VandeHei discussed these trends, they considered what kinds of journalistic and business innovations could deliver profits for media products. Clearly, online and niche publications were making inroads. Some publications, like Marshall’s “Talking Points Memo,” reaped the advantages of both—the targeted advertising of niche publications and the inexpensive, wide distribution the Internet allowed. VandeHei later noted:

The new media formula is pretty simple: If you can build a desirable audience that a class of advertisers wants to reach, you have a darn good chance at success. Advertisers want efficient ways of reaching their target audience, and niche sites offer it (if you can build a big enough audience). [1]

Maybe, Harris and VandeHei discussed, politically engaged readers fascinated by the workings of the federal government might represent a specialized audience attractive to advertisers. If a media entrepreneur could create a website and hire a handful of well-known, widely read political reporters to write for it, surely a large and loyal audience was out there. That audience, in turn, would attract advertisers. With a small staff and single-subject focus—and without the cost of newsprint and paper distribution—such a website would not cost as much to operate as larger news organizations, and would bring in a healthy stream of revenue. The publication could even challenge the New York Times and the Washington Post in political reporting. Its reporters would likely be sought after as commentators on television political talk shows, attracting still more audience to the site.

In summer 2006, VandeHei made a bold suggestion. What if he and Harris started this website themselves? As top political correspondents at the Washington Post , they qualified as two of the brand of well-known reporters that could attract readers. The two of them had personal connections with other influential political writers. VandeHei’s friend Chris Cillizza had joined the Washington Post as a politics blogger in fall 2005 and had gained a large following. Chuck Todd, an acquaintance of Harris and VandeHei, was the editor-in-chief of National Journal ’s “The Hotline,” a Web-based politics news source aimed at policymakers and the news media. Harris and VandeHei were also close friends with Mike Allen, a well-known political reporter at Time magazine who had previously worked at the Washington Post and who was legendary in the Washington media for his marathon work hours.

Harris and VandeHei thought it would take only about a dozen writers to staff the kind of website they envisioned. The website could devote one blog to covering the Democrats, another to the Republicans, and a third to Capitol Hill. It could incorporate video and provide space for readers to interact with reporters and each other. Their idea, VandeHei recalls, was:

You give us six stars and six rising stars, and we’ll change the world… And because people already know us, people are going to link to us, and people are going to have us on TV. And it will all be self-reinforcing. [2]

Mid-2006, moreover, seemed the ideal time to get started. The race to win the 2008 presidential election, two years away, was already beginning. Hillary Clinton, former first lady of the United States and a Democratic senator from New York, was widely thought to be preparing a run for the presidency. If elected, she would become the first female President of the United States. Another potential contender was Barack Obama, a first-term Democratic senator from Illinois. Should he choose to run and get elected, he would become the first African-American President of the United States. The election promised to be historic and, in the shorter term, much-discussed.

VandeHei had few doubts that he and Harris could succeed with the political website they were discussing. By October, he was urging Harris to talk to venture capitalists to see if any would be willing to provide them startup money. Harris was cautious. He had spent his entire career at the Washington Post , and had only recently accepted a job as editor. He was reluctant to leave, essentially to start a competing publication. But there seemed no risk in simply discussing a business plan, and a friend of his was well-connected in the venture capital world. He set up a meeting.