Tom Coburn's rising star

Is Tom Coburn becoming more powerful because of bloggers' support? It looks like it.

I looked up the "bridge to nowhere" project, and concluded that epithet is unfair. The bridge would connect the commnities around Ketchican Alaska to it's airport. Currently they have to get there by ferry. It wouldn't exactly be a bridge to nowhere, but it's still hard to justify it in terms if how many it will serve.