Friday, September 28, 2007
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My Return of Serve
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Posted by:
Dean Barnett at
8:55 AM
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Patrick definitely tagged me. Allow me to offer just a couple of things of a factual nature by way of response. Other than that, I’ll let the posts stand as they are:
1) Patrick is right that I simplified Fred Kagan’s background. His standing as a super-qualified expert, though, only further makes my point. Kagan wrote about the surge for the Weekly Standard, a magazine with fewer readers than the Daily Kos. And yet it moved the debate, and altered the political scene more profoundly than any opinion piece of the decade. In other words, nothing has the potency of a powerful idea. The blogosphere’s potential to produce ideas is the real gold in them thar virtual hills.
2) Going just by the numbers, Patrick overstates the potential potency of blogospheric fund-raising. Patrick writes, “But don't underestimate the millions -- yes millions -- of activists who will be inspired to give money next year.” Something may inspire these millions – yes millions – but it won’t be reading blogs. Check out our sitemeters. The most popular center/right blog doesn’t even approach having one million readers (or even a half million readers), let alone additional millions of readers.
3) Sorry – I’m going to sneak in a more theoretical point. In regards to the relative online success of raising money for Colonel Jim Ogonowski who’s running in a congressional special election against Paul Tsongas’ tediously liberal widow, Patrick writes, “It's all about knowing what buttons to push and picking the right battles. “
While the button to contribute to his campaign has become ubiquitous on this site, I haven’t seen any commentary on why electing Ogonowski is “the right battle”. I had Colonel Ogonowski on the radio last Sunday, and he’s the kind of conservative who talks about what a big mistake it was to invade Iraq and how we have to get the troops home. He spends the rest of his time lamenting the partisan divide in Washington. Obviously, to win in greater Boston, he has to say rubbish like this, and he would certainly have my vote. He also seems like a great guy.
But will he be the kind of congressman who will forward the agenda of the right-roots? Is he the kind of Republican that conservatives who don’t have to breathe the fetid air of Cambridge should be excited about? Or is the right-roots’ lodestar merely electing people who aren’t Democrats? If so, that sounds a lot like Kos’s philosophy.
You might want to check with Markos to see how his political tactics have translated into real world change. Hint: Markos’ tactics have been outflanked by Fred Kagan’s ideas.
Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com.
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Does this mean that 99% of internet punditry is bloviating gasbaggery signifying nothing? No, that's talk radio!
My question - how to separate the wheat from the chaff?
How has time to weed thru it all, except maybe Hewitt blog commentators? |
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More like tens of thousands. Talk radio plays a far bigger role still than the blogosphere. And while Kos' numbers are big, they are still not that big. Still far less than Katie Couric's. The only blogsphere guy racking in the huge numbers is Matt Drudge at about 14+ million hits a day. Hasn't Drudge done more for the conservative movement with his simple link site than anything Kos has done?
And while I applaud Fred Kagan and his efforts with the surge and think he is really smart, he was hardly the first guy to say those things. Fred is a brilliant guy, but he happened to say those things when the Bush Administration was open to chaning course. There were lots of other critics saying similar things. It only took three and a half years of Rummy's "success" to make the President realize something had to change. Hence the surge, Rummy getting kicked to the curb, and Gates taking over SofD. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21018179/site/newsweek/ |
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..in that pitcher???
EXercise is GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD...Now,get out there for some sun and a walk every day.Jeeeez.
...and fewer candy bars & donuts at the keyboard.
Your mothers would smack ya both. |
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solely from the pages of the Weekly Standard is just wrong.
The ideas and recommendations of Fred Kagan finally took hold because of the critics before him like John McCain, Colin Powell, and others warned the occupation was being done completely wrong. It was a chorus of voices (both friendly and unfriendly) who eventually turned the President on this. Heck, even the President admitted he eventually became dissatisfied on how things were going and said his critics were right. |
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It will indeed mean a lot if he's elected in Massachusetts, even if the electorate only concludes we don't need another Democrat in our all-Democrat congressional delegation. It And even if he will not be a Mike Pence, he will be more likely to follow a Mike Pence than the squalid path the Democrats walk. His victory will also help to lift the pall of pessimism currently hanging over the party. |
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..since,at least,Alexander the Great.Some folks with brainstems attached applied it this year and
it's working good. |
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even sadder than the picture above. Neoconscum is right. They say tanning booths are bad, but you guys need some help! Get some exercise.
Back to the numbers. . .
http://truthlaidbear.com/ecotraffic.php
Look at the numbers. Kos is right up there at the top, with about 490,000 hits a day. Kos is #6, right behind gadget and gamer sites. Instapundit ranks at #80 with about 210,000 hits. The Daily Dish/Andrew Sullivan ranks #170 with 74,000 hits a day. Townhall.com ranks #249 with about 35,000 hits a day. I did not see Hugh Hewitt broken out on the list, but I did not go beyond the top 500.
Note all the non political blogs scoring relatively big numbers, I noted the Daily Puppy (no it is not an offshoot of Sullivan's site) ranking #287 with 23,000 hits.
Then there is Drudge scoring 14,000,000 hits plus a day. |
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Esther Dyson wrote a book called "2.0" which was very prescient about how the internet would evolve. She made one point that I think is central to this discussion and I paraphrase: the internet will be a great conspiracy tool but a lousy mass marketing tool.
People who blog are not like people who don't blog. People who comment are yet another deviant life form but back to bloggers. Bloggers have proven time and again that given a cause, they can "conspire" to make a big difference.
We have to make a distinction between readership vs influence. We have to come up with a better metric than number or hits and views to measure the internet's impact on events. We are currently trying to assess the internet's importance based on mass marketing metrics when we should be measuring influence. Think icebergs and Hugh's concept of the power of the tail. |
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As is often the case is right. Influence is the key, and that comes from ideas.
BTW, that's not me and Patrick in the picture. |
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..example of 'Busting Their Chops' with the truth FAST.His recent victim-blubbering is worth the nausea. |
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My metrics are abysmal and yet I just planted an idea in the mind of a "high-flying influential" (that's yuppy marketing talk for BMOC). You just can't measure that kind of thing. It's organic. Like probiotics. |
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I didn't think it was you Dean in the picture(unless you rapidly degressed from your TV appearances), but I thought it might be Patrick.
I agree with Pasadena Phil to a point. Yes the conservative blogosphere has had some victories with the Pajamahadeen and Rathergate and a couple of other big hits. Blogs certainly acted as ice bergs to the Kerry campaign (in fueling the Swift Boat critics, etc.). But as an influence to those in power. . . it is not there yet but it is growing. As to influencing the GOP, that still goes to NRO, the Weekly Standard, and syndicated journalist pundits like Krauthammer and Barone (and the Dems still look to thier traditional magazine, MSM, and newspaper supporters). But blogs have their place and are growing, they are just not there yet (talk radio folks like Limbaugh, Medved, Ingraham, etc. do more than probably all the conservative blogs combined). Yes influence matters, but traffic is decent metric for how effective you are in getting that information out. |
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I used the iceberg metaphor to point out that we are trying to assess the impact of blogs based on the part that we see and ignoring the mass below. We are trying to measure the importance of blogs based on "establishment" metrics. The internet is an anti-establishment tool. That is what is being expressed in all of the polls and surveys that show that people are fed up with their government. The internet is a great place for angry people to unite in channeling their efforts to defeat or otherwise undermine something. It works bottom up. It is virtually useless for the establishment who will often feel ambushed and besieged. Under closer inspection, government corruption is being exposed. So what does the government do? Tries to hide. The internet is thus a good thing for a democracy.The question is will the establishment's ubiquitous cameras and tracking of law-abiding citizens succeed before a more open democracy can evolve from the new communication technology? Ideas matter and so I agree with Dean. Ideas have legs. Process? Eh. |
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As for me,I am but a T-Rex lifelong student of history and longtime sleazy Hollywood TV producer.
So...Please...Speak slower and fewer on this stuff,will ya Guys?Damn. |
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blogosphere as advocacy, as news breaker etc. The one thing we do better than anyone else is find fault and crystalize to it's purest essence. We examine and reexamine every angle, every aspect of the suspect issue, exploring every possibility, even the irrational and insane ones until the collective brain constructs an implacable and truely aimed lance of truth with which to strike down the wicked. Or the stupid, which is more likely. |
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If Jim wins in Mass., the Second Coming is really near. One has to really pick ones battles fiscally in this campaign. No more just sending money to the RNC et al. Or over the Net to fund some unknown who has no chance in a Dem safe district. Voters, posters will need all the info they can get to pick battles, send the funds where actual winning is possible, and the optimism of Hugh doesn't spread to all 435 House seats! There are 17 seats out there that Pubs can possibly win if the right recruits are there. Are they? Who will tell us? We can't trust the RNC to do it. Will Net writers, bloggers? Pubs really need good info to halt the socialist pacifists in the Dem Party from taking all 3 Branches of Govt, and that includes choosing SCOTUS seats. |
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well, not quite-
DEan: "Or is the right-roots’ lodestar merely electing people who aren’t Democrats? If so, that sounds a lot like Kos’s philosophy."
Just because you shouldn't be SOLELY about winning, ideology secondary to that, doesn't mean winning shouldn't still be important. MA-5 is important even if he's not the next Reagan. |
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Totally agree on the internet allowing us to monitor government better. I really do not fear Big Brother from the Government. Let's face it, if they screwed up Katrina and a host of other issues what makes you think they would be any more effective at anything else. The danger of government tyrany is accidentially falling into its maws.
Actually I am worried more about criminals using the internet against me. And the government being next to worthless to stop it.
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