Liberal/Conservative Blogospheres in the New York Times
by Matt Stoller, Sun Dec 11, 2005 at 06:32:05 AM EST
When the liberal activist Matt Stoller was running a blog for the Democrat Jon Corzine's 2005 campaign for governor, he saw the power of the conservative blogosphere firsthand. Shortly before the election, a conservative Web site claimed that politically damaging information about Corzine was about to surface in the media. It didn't. But New Jersey talk-radio shock jocks quoted the online speculation, inflicting public-relations damage on Corzine anyway. To Stoller, it was proof of how conservatives have mastered the art of using blogs as a deadly campaign weapon.That might sound counterintuitive. After all, the Howard Dean campaign showed the power of the liberal blogosphere. And the liberal-activist Web site DailyKos counts hundreds of thousands of visitors each day. But Democrats say 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. (Hillary Clinton, for instance, is routinely vilified on liberal Web sites for supporting the Iraq war.) Conservatives, by contrast, skillfully use the Web to provide maximum benefit for their issues and candidates. They are generally less interested in examining every side of every issue and more focused on eliciting strong emotional responses from their supporters.
But what really makes conservatives effective is their pre-existing media infrastructure, composed of local and national talk-radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, the Fox News Channel and sensationalist say-anything outlets like the Drudge Report - all of which are quick to pass on the latest tidbit from the blogosphere. "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," Stoller says.
Lowell Feld at Raising Kaine tackles this question on the Virginia blogs.
Liberal blogs are way more important than conservative blogs, as I've said here. Right-wing blogs are an adjunct to a powerful right-wing message machine. By contrast, we are all there is on our side. For instance, John Amato at Crooks and Liars is profiled today in the LA Times. His video blog is quite innovative, and is a tonic to right-wing distortions. That kind of innovation simply does not happen on their side. Still, it'll be a few years for us. We can't even fund Actblue's attempt to do state-level fundraising. We should be embarrassed, since no one's been better to us than Actblue. (Of course, if you want to prove me wrong, give $100 to Actblue; the legal costs of Actblue'ing a state are $10,000.)
Anyway, feel free to bitch at me here about what I said to Crowley.
Tags: Blogosphere (all tags)
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