Preface this criticism with the knowledge I’ve had cordial interaction with 2 of TheNextRight’s founders, and while I wish them nothing but political fail, I welcome their addition to the blogosphere (at the very least as fodder for my eternal amusement).
That said, the site’s problem is the same as Redstate, Townhall, etc. They are a product of professional Republicans. They come from the Bush, McCain, and Allen campaigns.
Back in 2000-2001 when the liberal blogosphere was being formed, it wasn’t at the hands of people like Carville, Shrum and Devine. It was created from people who had never drawn a paycheck from a pol or party. When I started this site in 2000 I had never spoken to a pol or seen one in person.
Part of this was because tech leans left by nature, though it largely came because the MSM only had room for an endless army of right wing nutjobs and a smattering of weak kneed “liberals” sure to take a dive. There were no Olbermann’s Maddow’s or Ron Reagan Jr’s.
The DNC wasn’t. Interested until Dean broke records and it took Dean and Obama for them to mainstream us. I don’t the right can do it with an incumbent president and some capable consultants. Only via true exile and grassroots who mostly can’t tell you where the heck K street is will the con blogosphere’s hubs become the action centers they desire.
Like every other new direction conservative site, TheNextRight started with hype before actually doing anything. Typical. Public relations before accomplishments. They haven’t even gone online before the announcements went out about how they are going to Finally Change Everything for the right by using the Tubes.
I suggest doing something worth bragging about before starting to brag.
It will only for work for the right when they become a bottom up party(which ain’t happening for a long, long time, if ever).
Oliver, I agree entirely with the points you make in the last paragraphs. But when you say When I started this site in 2000 I had never spoken to a pol or seen one in person, I have to ask how different that is from the founders of the Next Right. When they started in the blogosphere, had they ever spoken to a pol?
Look, I ask this because I don’t know the answer. But I prefer honest comparisons, and you’ve made one that doesn’t quite pass the smell test for me. I don’t see where this new site is being directed or run by the equivalent of the Carville, Shrum and Devine of 2001. I understand that these guys have worked as paid consultants, but then, what are you? Come clean so I don’t have to lose the entire conversation under a pile of salt grains.
Well I know when Ruffini was blogging he was a consultant before. The others I don’t know for sure but I’m mainly discussing their status at Next Right’s beginning. When I started this site I barely knew what a paid political consultant was and I had not been employed in politics until 2004. And even so, I’m not involved in any campaigns or with pols or the party. And it ain’t even about just me – our side has been far more organic – the posters on sites like Dailykos are regular Jacks and Jills, not the DC crowd. There is grassroots web on the right, they just happen to be the fevered swamps of Free Republic.
[...] the right wing blogs that were too pathetic to grow their own communities and instead had to be the product of GOP consultants, the conservative movement has a well oil machine that has sold the nation on ill-conceived wars, [...]
And it ain’t even about just me – our side has been far more organic – the posters on sites like Dailykos are regular Jacks and Jills, not the DC crowd.
There is grassroots web on the right, they just happen to be the fevered swamps of Free Republic.
I agree on your definition, but AstroTurf has a lo-o-o-ong tradition on the Right, and taking it to the blogosphere has been pretty successful so far.
Consider that your target audience mostly reacts rather than acting and the easiest way to Shock the Monkey is fear.
I dropped into your site today after spending an hour deconstructing a slandermail by Kit Lange, currently making the rounds of the Intertubes. I think we might all want to do more of this–Responding with humor, outrage, weary resignation or whatever, to all of the fearful emails forwarded by your second cousin in Pennsylvania.
We still have lotsa work to do……..