Blogs For Victory

Jon Henke over at The Next Right has offered a response to my earlier assessment of the conservative blogosphere. He agreed with me on some parts, and disagreed on others… I thought it be worthwhile to offer some thoughts on his response:

The Rightosphere was unable to duplicate the fundraising prowess of the Leftosphere because we aren’t really passionate about a mission. Oh, sure, there are things about which we are all passionate. Some people care a lot about taxes, others about spending, others about the war, or Iraq, or immigration, or earmarks, or any of a hundred other things. But what is the common thread? What do each of those things have to do with the other, except “it’s what our team generally advocates”? If there’s any unifying thread to the Right’s issues, it has been undone by the Republican Party’s actual behavior.

I think we are passionate about a mission, but for some reason most bloggers on the right (and their readers) aren’t so easily convinced to donate money to candidates outside of their districts. Perhaps that was a symptom of being in the majority. I consider myself an activist, but the last candidate I donated money to that wasn’t a candidate I could actually vote for was John Thune when he ousted Tom Daschle.

What is missing from our attempts to raise money for Republicans is the motivation that our efforts and contributions will mean something. Now that we are essentially struggling for political survival, we have an opportunity to harness the power of Republicans across the country to help elect conservatives get elected and take back tis country.

But in what sense are Righty bloggers trying to recreate the party in their own image from the top down? By arguing for their own conception of what the Party should be? That’s exactly what the Left did. Progressive bloggers organised the netroots by telling a story about what the Democratic Party could and should be. The communities arose because people rallied around the conception of the Democratic Party being espoused by people like Markos, Jerome Armstrong, Matt Stoller, Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, Kevin Drum, Duncan Black, Chris Bowers, Josh Marshall, John Aravosis and others.

And their efforts were largely focused on supporting candidates to bring into Washington. Liberal activists have shown the ability to raise thousands of dollars for candidates in targeted districts across the country. That is how they sent a message to the Democratic Party. Money speaks louder than petitions and mission statements.

The Rightosphere has never been about “community”. Some Right-of-center blogs have developed sizable communities in the form of comment sections (LGF, Malkin, Hot Air), but very few right-of-center blogs have developed genuine, interactive, participatory communities. Red State has been a diary/community site for quite some time, though (for a variety of reasons) never approaching the size of Daily Kos. Next Right is a diary/community site, but still much newer and smaller. The Rightosphere has been about media criticism and punditry, not community and activism.

It is true we never were about centralized community. But our problem is that we apparently think that is how it has to be. The comment section of one blog doesn’t constitute a community. A group of blogs united behind a candidate or a cause do. I think we had that in 2004… and lost it, very quickly.

And the Rightosphere has never been DC-centric and elitist. Many of the prominent Lefty bloggers are DC residents, but very, very few of the prominent Righty bloggers are based in DC. Glenn Reynolds (Knoxville), Ed Morrissey and Powerline (Minneapolis), Pajamas, Volokh and Red State (scattered), RealClearPolitics (Chicago). The people behind The Next Right are an exception, but the point of this site is that Ruffini, Dayton and I are in the unusual position of being at the nexus between the political world and the internet media.

Maybe you have to be outside of DC to recognize the DC-centrism. But is is there. Being DC-centric isn’t just about being based out of DC. It is also a mentality and attitude.

Of course there are successful blogs that are based outside of DC… But, let’s a look at some of the aforementioned examples. Glenn Reynolds is now a part of Pajamas Media (the epitome of blogger elitism). Ed Morrissey was bought out by Michelle Malkin and now is a part of her blogging conglomerate. Whose agenda was really advanced by that move?

Imagine that, instead of blogs supporting each other, they by eachother out. Four years ago I would have laughed at the idea. I cannot understand why bloggers who hate the MSM so much try to emulate them.

And then there is Red State, which suffers severely from Kos-envy and delusions of grandeur. Red State has been constantly trying to be more than a blog… including a 527. it is now affiliated with Eagle Publishing, Inc., and is no longer a blog in my eyes.

The problem is that Republicans are not offering people an an agenda that people want to vote for. If Republicans are alienating voters, don’t get indignant at the voters. “Blame the victim” is not a good way to stop losing elections.

I have to disagree with Jon here. I still believe that this is a center-right country. This is not about blaming the victim. This is about recognizing our faults and determining a strategy for improvement.

Jon does agree with me about the need for localized/specialized blogging:

Do you know how you can have the biggest impact with a blog? Skip the 10,000th blog about national politics and start a hyper-focused blog. Write about either (a) something on which you have real expertise, or (b) something you can do genuine research and information gathering. Start a blog about your city council, the EPA, your local newspaper, a Lefty blog, a think tank, or your school board. If you do it well, you probably still won’t have a lot of readers. But those you have will be very, very important readers.

We need less punditry, more information gathering, information organization and specialization.

He is right. how many people read your blog is less important than who reads your blog. National blogs need to support smaller, localized blogs instead of believing they can (or should) do it on their own.

I certainly encourage Margolis to fight the battles he wants to fight, but bloggers can and have had an impact on leadership races. I can attest that political offices pay attention to what bloggers are writing. It matters.

The example he cited was the Republican House Leader race. John Shadegg, despite overwhelming support from bloggers. Impact from bloggers was minimal. It is fine to try, but those are not the battles we should be focusing on.

But, he got the wrong idea about my point about promoting candidates, not our own agenda:

But “promote candidates, not your own agenda” sounds an awful lot like “shut up and sing”. Supporting the party is not a good way to fix the party. It only subsidizes bad behavior. Eventually, the Republican Party will again align its agenda with a sufficiently large coalition, and retake a majority.

He went on to say that “bloggers should promote candidates who do promote the blogger’s agenda.” which is actually the point I was making, so this is actually another point we agree on. We have to get it in our heads that we can promote our agenda by supporting candidates that support our agenda. I think the strategy needs to be a bottom-up strategy that includes local bloggers… not a top-down strategy focusing around a few, large national blogs.

Margolis seems unhappy that the Rightosphere has been unable to unite behind Republicans, and there are certainly a variety of things the Right and the Republican Party needs to do better online. But blaming the bloggers confuses the symptoms for the disease.

Bloggers on the right are not to blame for the Republican Party’s losses. Online activism has less impact if it doesn’t translate to a real feet-on-the-ground grassroots activity. My overall point is that the conservative blogosphere has to change itself in order to have an impact. We can’t change the party unless we change our current strategy and focus on supporting candidates and not trying to change the party from within Washington.