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The Next Right

By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Blogging, Conservatism, Republicans

In nature, fires serve a purpose, clearing away the old and deadened and giving space for new growth. The same can happen in politics. Even before the November elections, the Republican Party is already burning. The GOP looks headed for quite the whipping this Fall.

But if there’s any good news for conservatives it’s that new outgrowths are already springing up from the blackened earth. Exhibit A: The Next Right, a new blog/conservative activist site focused on reinvigorating the conservative movement. It was started by young(ish) conservatives Soren Dayton, John Henke and Patrick Ruffini, all of whom have a techie bent and a desire to break the Republican Party free from outdated practices and thought processes.

In some ways, The Next Right is just a blog with intelligent but predictably partisan posts. But, in many other ways, the site is pushing boundaries. They’ve questioned what Republicans can learn from Ron Paul’s success (rather than just dismissing the man as a loon), they’ve criticized the American Conservative Union for a clueless decision and they spend plenty of time analyzing how conservatives can better mobilize through technology, including proposing a revamp of John McCain’s website.

The Next Right is not a site for non-partisans looking for a kinder, gentler conservativism, even though the writers are generally less strident than some of their old-school brethren. This site is decidedly partisan and is primarily an attempt to create a netroots for the right that can help restore Republicans to national power. Some of it is about changing the conservative message. More of it is about changing the messaging through web 2.0 technology.

This is certainly an effort the right needs. Whether it succeeds or not remains to be seen but I like The Next Right’s willingness to challenge the stodgy assumptions of the conservative establishment.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 12th, 2008 and is filed under Blogging, Conservatism, Republicans. 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.

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