Redstate

I found out about THIS initiative, called "Conservative Blogger Conference" sponsored in part by Heritage. They aspire, too, for a credible yearlykos. My comment, while not directed at you, begs the question "what are we trying to do here, exactly?"

I get the cynically sneaking feeling that some of those you mention here might be a bit more concerned with whether THEIR pet project (and hence their names) are attached to the Conservative equivalent of the Moulitsas anomaly, or whether they are concerned with righting the lilting Conservative ship...I being one among them.

With the fractures and fissures in the Conservative non-movement, hell bent on fighting over which faction is right and which have caused an exodus en-masse...coalescing, joining forces, sharing resources, building a "one voice" mentality, etc...might go a long way to addressing our collective ills.

Just as we suffer at the hands of our political heroes, so too does hope for progress and improvement dwindle when there is such "in fighting" regarding which "big name" should get the brass ring, and lay claim to the newly anointed Conservative Moulitsas equivalent.

We need to come together...I don't give a flip which dotcom calls dibs to being there first-we just need to come together. We "little guys" are sick of watching everyone else fight over who's on top, while we all get squished underneath the pigpile.

haystack's 12th:
Conservatives (and Presidential Candidates especially) shall offer no aid and comfort to the opposition in times of legislative conflict (and ensuing political campaigns).

The left-blogs do it by trying to control the money - raise it for your friends to use against your enemies, whether for Democratic primary or general election. They also get attention by letter/email/hate-bombing anyone they disagree with.

The right-blogs have demonstrated their power by expressing overwhelming disgust with certain decisions from Bush (e.g. Miers and immigration reform) or by doing tremendous fact-finding to uncover lies of the left (e.g. Dan Rather and Scott Thomas). Did our side do as much letter-bombing or pouring in (or withholding of) funds? Maybe not, but our point got across in these and in other examples.

Just because the way we do things is a little different - more civilized maybe? - doesn't mean it didn't exist.

During the clinton years, the right did own the internet. We haven't had a reason to develop a netroots because (a) we've been in power and (b) conservatives are in power with the party, unlike the Democrats who were dominated by the more moderate DLC (this is why, imho, so many R bloggers tend to be libertarian and thus more estranged from the administration).

That said, the time for buidling has come.

http://www.myelectionanalysis.com

There is a reason why are called the silent majority. Our activism on the net mimics our activism in reality (or lack thereof).

bk raises a great point that the conservative netroots showed a lot of power taking out Miers and rallying against the immigration reform bill. There are a great many conservative blogs, as you can see in the blogroll to the right. I think that they are going to be constantly humming right up until November 2008 and beyond.

horace, nice site. I like the way you are making predictions for the congress, and gubernatorial races. Check out my political forum sometime if you want to talk about the 08' race and debate the issues.

ncr

I'm not sure we should want to emulate the netroots 'success'. They are being increasingly radicalized and ever more convinced that their radicalism is mainstream. It will all come apart of its own accord soon enough. All you have to do is read those sites to appreciate how increasingly looney toons most of those people are.

Over at Daily Kos and MyDD they're trying to diminish the national party from being a coalition to being a mouthpiece for the radical left.

However we at sites like Red State respect too many factions of the party to do that. I mean, it's not as though we even regularly bash the, er, out of step Republicans from places like New Hampshire at every opportunity, calling them cowards, etc.

Further, collectivization, centralization, and the submission of the individual to the 'class' is central to lefty thinking. I think we're better off recognizing the true intellectual diversity on the right (echoing Russell Kirk here) and staying as we are.

Or are we actually going to try to cram people who think like Moe Lane, Michelle Malkin, and Hugh Hewitt under one tent? heh

HTML Help Central for Red Staters
I voted Harry Browne in 2000, but will never vote Ron Paul.

We get our work done in other ways. We did defeat shamnesty, but the power on the right is to a great extent in talk radio. Talk radio is to the right what DKos and co. are to the left. THIS is why the Dems want the Fairness Doctrine -- for this reason and to just plain shut up Rush and co. As much as I love and am devoted to the righty blogs, I learn more from Rush in 3 hours than I do most righty blogs in a week (present company excepted). I can skip the cable news that spikes my blood pressure and hear all I need to know about the current and historic antics, shames and corruptions of the Dems from Rush, and this drives them straight up the wall. They want all this buried and forgotten and unknown.

And at the end of the day, Rush and co. in partnership with the blogosphere (ok, a mostly unacknowledged symbiosis) affect policy way more than the Netroots affect policy - in my opinion. They are always frothing and seething over there and usually lose their wars. We often win ours.

But the gut of a conservative is not to be an activist but to promote ideas. Modern activism is not about ideas, if it ever was.

You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.

A slug can't know how insignificant it is.
For all the blather about "we bought this party" etc they seem not to have achieved much. Do you think Harry Reid would be much better if there wasn't a netroots?

For the most part they're fools playing with cynical pros, pros who would gladly sell their mothers for votes. They think, or thought, they were pulling the strings but the Democrats wrote the book on exploiting groups or voting blocs and the netroots may be being taught a lesson while being to dumb to realize it.

"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville

I agree that the right is not getting beaten as badly on the internet, and that we have been effective on the internet in ways that the left has not. That said, we do need to pick up our e-fundraising efforts and start to respond to ActBlue. We don't have to match them dollar for dollar, but we can't be as close as we are to being shut out. Hopefully we'll use RightRoots as effectively as the left has used ActBlue. If we fail to do so, there will be fewer members of Congress willing to listen to us when key legislation comes up.

www.republicansenate.org

DailyKos is about power centralization. The online right is more distributed. Instead of an actual command and control structure, the power head (attractor,tensor) of the right is a projection of all our inputs.

Much more dynamic, flexible - able to processes a wider perspective space.

The structure of the online left reflects their political philososphy. The structure of the online right reflects theirs. If we abondon our structure, we abandon the ideals we hold.

So there is not Yearly-Kos equivalent or falsely adoring, publicly fawning group of politicians and MSM; who cares? Frankly, I think there is a significant amount of fear and patronizing involved with their rise to prominence.

Along with that elevation is an accompanying hard left lurch in the Democratic platform and not to be prescient, but in the long run that will be extremely troublesome. You can not appeal to the parochial majority of your party, especially after continual losses on the issues, and still win national elections involving the greater populace.

Overall, I believe we are trying to measure using the wrong standards. For example, there have been numerous, regular posts by respected party members both here at RS and across other conservative sites. We also have excellent first hand accounts from Iraq, considerable intellectual resources, a breadth of grass roots efforts and generally a group that when properly motivated will get out and make a difference. I find it hard to believe that winning on issues such as immigration, SCOTUS nominations and over the overt protests from liberals, et al, pursuit of victory in Iraq, are not attributed to communication or organization performed using the internet. In summary, the diversity of our movement and ability to adroitly group together at key junctures is our strength. I fail to see any of that between the vile, misguided and often contra intellectual positions taken by the KOS kids.

So hold a BBQ in Eric’s backyard or around mbecker’s pool if it makes everyone feel better. However, for my money I will take the coalition on this side of the aisle any day.

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
Contributor to The Minority Report

to conservative/libertarian doctrine? As jdavenport comments above, being decentralized means being more efficient and flexible in harnessing power to direct change and decision making when it is needed.

Otherwise, you need to keep beating the drum and continually giving your antsy consolidated masses something to focus on real or imagined. Revolutions disintegrate when they don't have something to rail against over an extended period of time. They get what they want and then start looking for the next thing they want.

You see that happening right about now. The dems have been in power for a while and their Kos masses are getting frustrated with the lack of progress on the things they wanted next. As a result, they are starting to focus on themselves. I wouldn't be surprised to see a bit of liberal cannibalism over the next year.

Funny, I suppose we rail more against what we don't want, get it, and then go back to normal life. e.g high taxes, Harriet Miers, amnesty, etc. Who wants to live la vida politica loca 24/7? It makes normal people nuts.

At some point someone will attempt to take it over and run it for their own purposes, often along with a purging of internal threats. Isn't markos executing a purge at the moment?

Most people on the right are capable of reading from multiple sources and forming our own opinions based on the facts presented. It seems that many of the "progressive" sites put out an opinion, and like sheep everyone follows along.

Their "successes" are the result of natural political shifts that cannot be controlled by the netroots: example: Webb-Allen. In a close race, their money may be the tipping point, but who thinks that Webb has the same goals as Kos?

The netroots don't control the platform. Pelosi-Reid is not the creation of Kos. Pelosi has always been a liberal, Reid an opportunist. Kos had nothing to do with their positions. If anything, the netroots have contributed to the failure of their leadership. The Blue Dogs want nothing to do with the crazies, and Pelosi and Reid are not willing to sacrifice those Democratic seats to make the netroots happy. The true netroots politicians have been spectacular failures.

Bill O'Reilly was able to snatch JetBlue tickets away from Kos. Does that really indicate effectiveness? Bill's ego notwithstanding.

What is the goal? Fight fire with fire? Bad idea. Organize bloggers? Another bad idea. Do we really benefit is there in having conservative bloggers march lockstep into the next election? None.

Future success will depend on reaching those voters who do not consult the crystal ball of the blogosphere for each position. How do you do that?

as much as Rahm Emmauel who was responsible for '06. He got a bunch of Dems to run as moderates/conservatives to fool the electorate. And he succeeded, by and large. It was only after the election that many of them started sporting their true colors.

Kos is still 0-fer, even in 2006. Did any Democrats win because of Kos support? Don't think so. Any Kos comments to the contrary are false advertising.

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