One Last Call For Donklephant Writers
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Blogging
I wrote about this last week and I was pleasantly surprised with the number of people who’ve applied so far. Lots of great submissions and selecting the best has been difficult indeed.
However, since this is vacation season I wanted to make sure we weren’t missing anybody, so I’m posting this list of qualifications and expectations one more time just in case:
- You must understand the basics of blogging (linking to other sites, embedding pictures and video, etc.), and having a blog is preferred but not absolutely necessary.
- Good grammar and punctuation skills are a must.
- You can be affiliated with any political party or none at all. However, realize that this is a site that hews closer to the middle, so if you believe that the government should take over all means of production or perhaps you think the US should be converted into a religious state, well, you may not want to apply.
- You should be willing to commit to a minimum of 5 posts per week.
- If you’re engaged in multiple social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Digg, etc.) and are willing to use them to promote your posts, that would be a big plus.
- Be able to interact with the commenters on your posts and keep the conversation on track.
- Stay true to the spirit of the site and always make sure you keep your arguments sharp and your language clean.
- Opportunities for compensation may develop as we get closer to election season, but for right now these spots are unpaid.
So, if you’re interested, drop me at line at justin at donklephant dot com and let’s talk. I’ll be making my decision on who will join the team this week and will announce it next Monday, July 14th…the 4th anniversary of the site’s launch!
Stay tuned…
This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 and is filed under Blogging. 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.
July 6th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Given the site’s mission statement, it would do this site a great deal of good to have an actual conservative writing here. Not a “Republican independent” who hasn’t voted for a GOP candidate since Ford, but an actual Phant to the overwhelming preponderence of Donkles on the roster. Someone who voted for and supported McCain/Palin. I would strongly exhort you to guide your selection accordingly.
(As Justin knows but other readers may not, and so I should make clear, I did not and have no intention of submitting an application, so this is by no means self-serving.)
July 6th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
I nominate Simon anyway….I’m not sure we could find anyone else who would actually admit to voting for McCain/PALIN.
July 6th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
I appreciate that, Gerry, but I’m perfectly happy writing to the beat of my own drum at SF and in comments / tweets. As to not finding anyone else who would vote for McCain/Palin, you must surely realize that’s a conceit when 45% of the electorate voted for that ticket. for all the mythology of an Obama landslide, there was no such thing. It was a faily close election in which your guy happened to come out on top. An awfully large number of Americans – not quite enough, to be sure – declined to conspire themselves in this catastrophe.
July 7th, 2009 at 12:05 am
j/k about the McCain/PALIN voters, but in retrospect, you have to admit 8 months after the fact that voting for Palin and anyone has to at least give you pause.
And while I don’t subscribe to the “landslide” mythology, as you put it, 7 percent and change is a larger gap than you seem willing to acknowledge–especially given how polarized this nation has become. Add in the dramatic turnoever of 22 house seats and 6 senate seats and I’d say the GOP got a fairly good whoopin’
July 7th, 2009 at 1:11 am
Simon,
I can’t guarantee that I can get somebody who voted for McCain/Palin, nor do I really care that much about who somebody voted for. As last election proved, somebody could be very conservative and yet vote for Obama.
Also, the site’s mission statement mentions nothing about party affiliation. But I guarantee you that many of the writers you read here have either voted for Republicans and/or would consider doing so in the future. And that includes me. If somebody like Colin Powell or Jon Huntsman were to run on the Republican side, I’d give that candidate genuine consideration. And, as I stated on this blog last year, if Hillary would have won the nomination, I would have sat out and actually considered voting for McCain.
Last, concerning the landslide notion, Obama was the first Dem presidential candidate to get well over 50% of the vote since LBJ. Not only that, he bested McCain by 9 million votes. That’s as close to a landslide that a Dem candidate has ever seen. So while it may not be Reagan numbers, they’re still incredibly significant.
Regardless of all of that, I think you’ll find the new writers stimulating and I hope you continue to comment here.
July 7th, 2009 at 1:25 am
I would second or third a nomination for Simon. He’s a complete idiot on partisan politics but despite this he’s an interesting guy, an interesting writer.
Blogs are a little like talk radio or cable TV shows: normal is boring, weird and different are fun and interesting. I’m not being facetious: I’m an interesting writer because I’m a unique voice. No one sounds quite like me. (No, I’m not volunteering, I’m writing two book series simultaneously and various Hollyweasels are chasing me.) And Simon is that way too. He’s a personality. And I’m sorry, but if you’re looking for eyeballs don’t go looking for normal, look for unique.
Same would apply to Tully who is a giant pain in my ass. They both have what pro writers — people who earn a paycheck putting words on paper — would call, a “voice.”
Tully is scary good when the facts are on his side. Simon is crazy, but crazy in an interesting way.
So my serious advice, Justin, not being facetious, is that you reach out to both. Because what Donklephant needs is a bit more crazy. I’d also reach out to Transplanted Lawyer. He’s center-right. For a leftish voice talk to Anjin-san and Interested Party both of whom comment at OutsidetheBeltway. And tell ASC to stop being so nice and grown up: I know he has an inner dick he could release.
It’s less about the politics than the voice. You’re in the entertainment business, Justin. You’re normal and so is Alan. I love what you guys bring. But I would come here every day to screw with Simon. Consensus is useless: education comes from the conflict of ideas, and that’s what I’m after.
So sign up the beasts and then turn them loose.
July 7th, 2009 at 7:06 am
As to the need for a voice of a certain stripe. I’d like to see a principled conservative voice. Someone ho makes you say, that’s an interesting point, I’ll have to think about that. Not someone who makes me say, how predictable.
The “I’ll vote for a Republican every time type” are not very interesting based on the last eight years. (I’d like to see someone like my neighbor’s father who actually came to my door to apologize for voting for Bush.-Now that’s an American} Voting for McCain/Palin as a litmus test doesn’t make me respect your judgment, it makes me question whether you have any.
July 7th, 2009 at 7:08 am
ho should obviously be who. I was arguing against hos :-)
July 7th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Mike, I agree with everything you said–except I am not sure Donklephant is the correct forum for it.
That formula was tried once–it was on CNN and it was called Crossfire. One short visit from John Stewert (the “you’re a dick” heard round the world episode)–and now no more Crossfire.
I love to read Simon and Tully and the like, but I prefer them in the comments section. I see Donklephant as a middle ground where people come to share, not a battleground which is what I fear might happen if we let some of the contributors “let their inner dick” out.
July 7th, 2009 at 9:37 am
the Word Says:
*Chuckle* Think about that for a minute.
July 7th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Not very surprising to me that the more iconoclastic among the commenters would like to hear more from Tully and Simon, while the more liberal folks don’t.
It is a partisan conceit on both wings that leaving out strong voices from the other side creates a “middle ground.” What it really creates is an echo chamber, a back-patting party.
July 7th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Justin:
Why jump higher when we can lower the bar? ;) With respect, this just seems an obtuse way of looking at the numbers. The numbers prove that Democrats have done badly in Presidential elections since the 1960s and that Obama did well enough, not that he managed a landslide. LBJ got a landslide. Reagan got a landslide. Obama got an electorate muttering in its sleep to roll over. It was a good enough showing, a respectable margin, but by no means a landslide. The idea that he won by a landslide is just part of the mythos his defenders have constructed around him.
July 7th, 2009 at 10:55 am
C’mon guys, it is no more or less than what it was, a convincing and substantial victory for democrats.
How tedious is it that progressives must exaggerate its extent and conservatives must minimize it?
Landslides are the kinds of singular high tides that come only through the confluence of multiple cultural gravitational forces that add multiplier effects to things like having a well-spoken and charismatic candidate. For example, Obama might well have had an even more convincing victory if the election was 45 days later when the extent of our economic collapse was even more manifest. And it might have been much closer had the real estate bubble not popped until say december. But we’ll never know either way.
July 7th, 2009 at 11:12 am
I’m not minimizing it, KK; As I said, it was a respectable margin, but by no means a landslide. I agree the other side – for several reasons – is exaggerating it. Let’s set things into context: Obama’s margin was 3.6%. That’s slightly less than George Bush’s margin over Dukakis (3.86%) and significantly less than Bill Clinton’s margin over Dole (4.25%). No one in their mind would describe Clinton’s 1996 victory as a landslide, and yet they logically must so argue to make such a claim about Obama. I therefore cannot understand how anyone can ask to be taken seriously in describing Obama’s smaller margin as a landslide.
And all of this is small beans in relation to real landslides, Reagan in ‘84 had a 9% margin; JBJ had 11%. Those numbers are why no one would describe 1996 as a landslide, and no one can seriously claim 2008 was either.
July 7th, 2009 at 11:22 am
I’m just wondering who you guys think is saying it was a landslide? All anyone has said is the numbers are significant (and I might add, especially considering not three years ago we were talking a permanent Republic majority).
And who is saying they don’t want to read Tully or Simon? I look forward to my daily dose of Tully and Simon.
This Sarah Palin persecution complex…not very pretty.
July 7th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
I wouldn’t say 2008 was a landslide, (it was a rejection of Republicans though-across the board in almost every category they got thumped if I remember correctly). It also to be fair has to be remembered that the winning candidate was a mixed race candidate being called a socialist and a foreigner by the competition so the numbers should be interpreted in that light as well. Reagan wouldn’t have won in his own party as a black man.
July 7th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Simon – I see where you might be confused. I meant principled conservative not consistent lackey for the GOP. I think there is a difference. For many of them Palin was that fork in the road. You took the wrong fork.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Simon, where are you getting your numbers? All of them are wrong.
LBJ bested Goldwater by 22%. Reagan beat Carter by 9% and Mondale by 18%.
In 2008, Obama had 52.9% of the vote and McCain had 45.7%. That’s 7.2%, exactly double what you cite. Also, Obama captured 365 electoral votes to McCain’s 173, a margin of more than 2 to 1.
It may not have been a landslide on the scale of Reagan and LBJ, but it was certainly a very decisive win.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Wow, Word. The race card? Really? Look at exit poll data by race, then come back to me and tell me what effect race had in the election.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Exiled-
That’s exactly the point. I would bet NO one saw a black man winning a Presidential election in 2008 before Obama. (with perhaps the exception of Powell before he was neutered) In both cases though, it would have been a really exceptional accomplishment, which makes Simon’s pronouncements on landslides and such to be missing a whopper of a wild card.
(BTW- where the race card was played was on the Republican side if you saw Alexandra Pelosi’s documentary on the election)
July 7th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Didn’t see Alexandra’s doc, just the NYT data. Did you see the NYT data?
July 7th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Not sure what you are saying Exiled. If you are saying that you think it was no big deal that we elected the first black or bi-racial President and that you knew it was going to happen you are quite perceptive. The fact that America coalesced around his candidacy with however much (or little agreement according to Simon) was IMO a monumental achievement. My only point was that it is a bit more than any previous election and should be factored in in some way.
And try to see Alexandra’s documentary. Frightening especially when you see her trying to clean them up for presentation.
July 7th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Justin, we’re expressing the same numbers in different ways. You’re expressing the difference between tallies, I’m giving you the margin. That’s why all your numbers are exactly double mine.
July 7th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
the Word Says:
If you haven’t figured it out by now, you’re not going to, so I might as well put you out of your misery. You asked for someone who was principled but not predictable, but someone who is principled will be predictable, assuming you know their principles. That is why, for example, I can tell you which way Justice Scalia is coming out in 99 cases out of 100 just from reading the briefs: I know what his principles are, and so his response to given fact patterns is predictable. In other words, you ask the impossible. If you want unpredictable, you have to go to someone whose views are determined either entirely ad hoc on the basis of some external consideration (Josh Marshall, for example, who is only predictable to the extent one can determine which angle Marshall thinks will most help the Democratic party) or from a complex grab-bag of a balancing test between multiple and competing concerns (Ann Althouse, for example). You can have principled, or you can have unpredictable. You can’t have both, unless you don’t actually read what the principled person writes, which defeats the object of the exercise.
July 7th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
In other words, Justin, we’re both right: all the numbers we’ve both given are correct, we just prefer different ways of expressing them. To my mind, when dealing with elections, the margin is the more useful figure because it tells you immediately the percentage +1 that would need to switch their vote to change the outcome.