Is this a metaphor about internal tension at the L.A. Times over future priorities — or maybe an indicator that the reading public is split? Here's an email that the Times blog editor, Tony Pierce, emailed the paper's bloggers today calling attention to a horse race between politics and celebrity gossip.

Hi Bloggers,

With less than 48 hours left in this month we have an interesting development happening. We have two blogs vying for the most popular blog for the month of July.

Top of the Ticket 1,684,500
The Dish Rag 1,529,308

Regardless of who “wins” this horse race, we are all winners this month as this will be a record-breaking month for blogs at the Times.

Details tomorrow…

The standard in use here is page views.