I love it when I have responded to an email, then realized I have created a blog post.
A friend sent me a piece of an article from the Richmond, VA Times-Dispatch, dealing with the Republican netroots – or their efforts in that respect, to be more specific.
This excerpt refers to Republican presidential candidates shunned CNN’s YouTube debates:
“Republicans cannot write off the Internet” the bloggers wrote on the Web site. “If you approach the Internet from a position of paralyzing fear, you will be outgunned, outmanned, and out-raised at every turn. It is fundamentally unacceptable to surrender to the Democrats on one of the most important battlefronts of this election.”
In Virginia, many Republicans disagree that their party is behind the curve,
pointing to state legislators’ efforts in stumping for re-election. Even
former Sen. George Allen, with his blog, has stepped back into the medium that
shredded his re-election bid.
“Most Republicans want a policy debate,” said Republican Party of Virginia
communications director Shaun Kenney, who has also blogged about state
politics. “They don’t want to talk to a snowman.”
He said Republicans are not lagging behind Democrats in using the Internet,
but they are doing it differently. Republicans tend to look to pundits, he
said, which is one reason why talk radio has done so well for them. Democrats
tend to look for opportunities to be more active, he said.
Emphasis mine.
Shaun, do you realize what you just said?
Go below the fold.
Here’s what I banged out in response, or rather, what it turned into after I expanded on it for this venue.
Conservatism, by its very nature, requires complete, top-down message control to function effectively.
That’s the difference between us and them.
This is why, I believe, the Republicans will never, never be able to use the internet, and paricularly, blogging, to the efficacy that we do.
The concept of open discussion as it exists in the blogosphere works against the nature of their philosophy. They are conservatives; and by nature, resistant to changes in their thinking or the introduction of new ideas.
Preservation of existing paradigms takes precedence over whether they function effectively, and with benefit, or not.
This creates an effect that could be expressed by saying that not only do they not learn from their MISTAKES, they at times have trouble learning from their SUCCESSES.
They don’t seem to have learned from their one major success to date at netroots activism that I can think of: getting Bush’s immigration package shot in the head.
What drove that?
DISSENT from party-line, activist-driven people powered gate crashization.
But even with that mojo working, they still used a heavy memetic: the concept of “amnesty” – therefore the message control was still in place.
The only difference was, WHO controlled it.
On RW blogs, dissenting views are, as often as not, deleted, and their advancers are frequently banned by administrators.
The Democratic/lefty blogs, as a rule, go to LENGTHS to avoid doing this, preferring instead to implement community moderation systems a la Daily Kos, and the SoapBlox network of which this site is a part.
There is little room for dissent in conservatism, I’m sure you’ll readily agree that that operates on any number of levels.
Conversely, we are a big tent, encompassing everyone from Creigh Deeds, t3h Mudcat, and Jim Webb to oh, say, Dennis (goofball) Kucinich.
And I can call him a goofball on Daily Kos and survive.
Doesn’t mean I don’t LIKE him, I just think he’s goofy.
But God help anyone who dares utter a negative word about oh, say, Rush Limbaugh? on the winger blogs.
You’ll find your account deleted, like as not.
After you get called fifty kinds of terrorist.
Keith Olbermann showed pictures of the Frost children’s accident last night on MSNBC. Link in today’s Cobalt Corral.
If you read the comments in the MSNBC blog from the wingers, they echo Malkin, who’s on point on this (having been dispatched by McConnell’s office) practically word for word.
Polly wanna cracker.
Right wing bloggers don’t scare me.
They don’t get WHY it works.
They can’t offer anything different than what can be gotten from passively watching Fox News, for instance.
And that last is just it.
Shaun Kenney, ad redundum:
Republicans tend to look to pundits, he said, which is one reason why talk radio has done so well for them. Democrats
tend to look for opportunities to be more active, he said.
Blogging is a TWO-way street.
You have to LISTEN as well as talk.
Republicans don’t do that so well.
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Their message machine would fall apart if people were actually allowed to think for themselves.
Or speak for themselves.
Or…….ask questions!
Like…..why are we attacking children again?
My question is, with Rove gone…..who is selecting the message?
In any case, one advantage that the right-wing blogs do have is that because they are top-down, authoritarian they are usually good about not attacking one another.
They specialize, of course, in attacking us.
Left blogs tho, because we are more free-spirited, also freely attack one another.
Or, at least, some of them do.
The left eats itself alive.