Why Do Liberal Blogs Have More Influence?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Blogging, General PoliticsProfessor Bainbridge makes an interesting point about conservative bloggers:
I have the distinct impression that the Democratic Party sees the liberal blogosphere as being inside the tent, while the Republican Party views the conservative blogosphere as being somewhere between an irrelevance and a minor nuisance. Maybe this is true, at least in part, because many prominent “conservative” bloggers (Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Reynolds, Stephen Green, and Eugene Volokh spring to mind) are not exactly stalwart Republican party loyalists but rather libertarians (or whatever) who put routinely put their principles ahead of party interests. Alternatively, maybe the Democrats have just decided to follow Lyndon Johnson’s advice about keeping your critics inside the tent peeing out rather than outside the tent peeing in.
I’m going to stick my neck out on this one and argue that this has more to do with the demographics of the party than anybody else. Liberals tend to be younger. Younger people tend to be more tech-savvy.
Also, the liberals I worked with in the Dean campaign were extremely tech-savvy. They visited the Dean blog every single day and they used online tools like Meetup.com to bring more people into the fray. I haven’t seen this same savvy from the conservatives I’ve met.
So perhaps the conservative/libertarian bloggers suffer for the simple reason that the people who seem to matter the most in the current conservative hierachy, the religious right, aren’t really into reading blogs?
Also, since the Dems aren’t in power, perhaps they’re more inclined to listen to their base. The blogosphere delivers a daily pulse on what’s going on and where the prevailing opinions lie within the liberal body politic. Conservatives haven’t really had to worry that much about this since their strategy has been working and they’ve been gaining more seats.
In other words, if it’s not broke don’t fix it.
However, all political engines need a tune-up, and I think the conservative noise machine could need one in very short order, especially with Bush’s number dipping into the 30s.
(HT: Instapundit)
This entry was posted on Friday, October 7th, 2005 and is filed under Blogging, General Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 7th, 2005 at 8:05 pm
Blogs are a Che Guevarra sort of medium: they exist out in the hills where they live on rancid pork and frijoles refritos. The GOP has actual power, the Dems have dreams and resentments. And the GOP has talk radio to absorb the Right wing cranks, while the Left having no such mechanism generates excess crankitude which fuels the blogs.
October 7th, 2005 at 9:09 pm
Kos has a slightly more cynical take on hit, he reckons it’s just because Liberal blogs have proved much better at campaign fundraising than Conservative ones.
October 7th, 2005 at 9:10 pm
Very interesting. Although I will say that I think many of the leftist radio programs (with the very glaring exception of Randi Rhodes) have good points, but they deliver them in the most caustic ways. Unfortunate indeed, but then again, when you make waves you attract viewers. It’s the blessing and curse of the media.
October 8th, 2005 at 12:44 am
Perhaps “liberal” blogs have more “influence” (whatever that means) because they are more responsive to the “every” man. Virtually every lefty blog takes comments, even putting up with, and debating resident righty lurkers.
Too many conservative blogs won’t take comments for the simple reason they are a “noise machine.” They tell you what to think, no discussion, no analysis, no feedback. Too many righty bloggers regurgitate the daily talking points, offer up unsubstantiated opinion, and suck up so that “their” leaders might some day deliver on the bloggers narrow single issue raison d’ etre.
I guess that didn’t work out so well with Bush picking Harriet Miers.