According to an article appearing in today's New York Times Sunday magazine, ?Conservative Blogs Are More Effective." According to leading Democratic blogger Matt Stoller, who recently worked on the Corzine for Governor campaign in New Jersey, what he witnessed in terms of coordination between Republicans - the campaign itself, right-wing talk radio and TV (e.g, Fox News), and bloggers - proved that "conservatives have mastered the art of using blogs as a deadly campaign weapon." Stoller adds that "One blogger on the Republican side can have a real impact on a race because he can just plug right into the right-wing infrastructure that the Republicans have built."The article's author, Michael Crowley, further argues that:
... there?s a key difference between liberals and conservatives online. Liberals use the Web to air ideas and vent grievances with one another, often ripping into Democratic leaders?.Conservatives, by contrast, skillfully use the Web to provide maximum benefit for their issues and candidates.
Is this true? How about here in Virginia?
It's hard for certain, of course, but here in Virginia we've certainly got a robust, active, powerful right-wing political blogging community. Looking at the blogroll at Commonwealth Conservative - run by an elected Republican official, by the way - it is apparent that the right wingers have a great deal of firepower on their side. Blogs like Sic Semper Tyrannis, One Man's Trash, Rick Sincere News and Thoughts, Too Conservative, and Shaun Kenney. There's also Republitarian, Bacon's Rebellion, Skeptical Observor (yes, "observer" is spelled wrong), and many more. That's a lot of right-wing firepower, no doubt about it!
On the Democratic side, we've got a fair amount of firepower too, with powerful blogs like Waldo Jaquith, Brian Patton, Virginia Centrist, My Own Backyard, Corey Hernandez, James Walkinshaw, Neal2028, Kenton Ngo's 750 Volts, and - of course - Raising Kaine. That's not too shabby by any stretch of the imagination.
However, it's important to point out that several of these Democratic blogs were not active during the Kaine-Kilgore campaign. For instance, Democracy for Virginia's blog essentially shut down with three months to go until the election, its last post being made on August 12. That hurt a great deal. Virginia Centrist was sporadic during the campaign season, as its author worked on the Werkheiser for Delegate campaign. Same thing with Commonwealth Commonsense, whose author was busy on the Dave Poisson campaign. Blue in Virginia is a promising blog by a talented young Democrat, but it also is somewhat sporadic (last post was 3 weeks ago).
Then there's "Not Larry Sabato," which is run by a Democrat but which provided neutral political analysis for the most part, not advocacy for the Democrats, during the campaign. There's South of the James, which is run by a brilliant guy - Conaway Haskins - who happens to be an Independent, not a Democratic partisan And others -- Corey Hernandez, James Walkinshaw, Richmond Democrat -- started up only after the election ended. In other words, for much of the campaign season it was pretty much Waldo, Brian, Kenton, Kathy, Neal, and Raising Kaine against that extremely long list of Republican bloggers.
But wait, it gets worse! Although statistics are a bit spotty and difficult to come by, as far as I can determine, the right-wing blogs kicked butt over the left-wing blogs in terms of "visits" and comments. For instance, Commonwealth Conservative averaged about 50% more visits than Raising Kaine did throughout 2005. In terms of comments, CC was also way ahead of RK. From what I can tell, this is not an isolated case: the right-wing and neutral blogs appear to have received far, FAR more visits and comments than the Democratic/Progressive blogs in Virginia during 2005. Period.
Finally, as far as I can tell, the Republican blogs in Virginia were much better coordinated with the Republican Party, with the national Republican blogs, and with individual Republican campaigns than their counterparts on the Democratic side. Check out the blogrolls at Michelle Malkin or Captain's Quarters or (two of the top Republican blogs nationally), for instance, and you'll see Commonwealth Conservative listed - along with dozens and dozens of local conservative blogs. Check out DailyKos and you won't see any Virginia Democratic blogs - or many state/local ones - at all. Check out MyDD, and you'll see a link to Virginia Progressive, a blog that has been defunct for months now. In other words, Republican bloggers appear to be well coordinated nationally, supporting their state and local blogs extremely well. Democratic bloggers...well, does the expression "herding cats" come to mind?.
The bottom line, though, is effectiveness. Despite the number of visits and comments, were the right-wing Virginia blogs really more effective than their left-wing counterparts during the 2005 gubernatorial campaign? Here, I would argue that the Democrats did pretty well for themselves, despite being seriously outnumbered, outgunned, and out-organized. In part, I agree with national Democratic blogger Atrios on this subject:
In a sense conservative blogs are more effective because both the massive right wing media and the mainstream media...are willing to pick up and retransmit their bullshit. So, the right wing wankosphere are yet another cog in the massive right wing media operation, and in accordance with the self-similiarty of the wingnut function, basically identical in all but scale.But the liberal blogosphere is a much greater value added for our side because we have such a shitty media infrastructure. If all the wingnut blogs disappeared tomorrow it really wouldn't have any impact on the national discourse. Sure they're there and the Right is better at using them but they don't really *need* them. They have plenty of other ways to launder their horseshit.
Interesting points, and certainly the case here in conservative-friendly Virginia. Which is why even a few powerful Democratic blogs like Waldo Jaquith and Raising Kaine could make a difference. Imagine if Waldo hadn't been there at all, to counterbalance the Republican hordes? How about if, as in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life," Raising Kaine had never been born? Would anyone have been there to point out the Kilgore campaign's use of racial code language? To provide Democratic coverage of an early Saturday morning gubernatorial debate in West Virginia? To highlight the extremists and slimeballs giving money to Republican campaigns? To combat right-wing slurs against Tim Kaine's religious faith, "liberalism," or whatever? How would this campaign have gone without that counterbalance by a few Democratic bloggers, even if we were badly outnumbered?
The bottom line is that I agree with Matt Stoller and the New York Times article: the Republican media machine, including blogs, is more powerful and better organized than its Democratic counterpart. However, what happened in Virginia during 2005 demonstrates that it's not just numbers that matter, it's also the force of argument, the tenacity of the bloggers, and their ability to get the facts out to the "mainstream media." In future races, however, I would STRONGLY recommend that Democrats strengthen their power in the blogosphere. Frankly, this needs to start immediately, if we hope to compete in 2006.
Let's face it, the reach and influence of political blogs are only going to keep growing. Political blogs are here to stay and cannot just be an afterthought anymore. The Republicans obviously "get it." How about the Democrats?
[UPDATE: Whoops, I forgot one significant left-wing blog in my roundup, Alice Marshall's GOTV. Sorry about that....I knew I'd miss someone once I started listing blogs. While I don't agree with Alice's politics in some ways (too far left, particularly on foreign policy), Alice's blog is certainly a significant one on the liberal/left side if the political spectrum.]