nuke
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no2liberals
Robert D
Murder of Ravens
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theobromophileRecently over at the Huckabee Forum, someone asked an excellent question regarding negative media attacks aimed at the Huckabee campaign…
“How do we counter that?“
How, indeed?
The attacks from the Right have come from A-list blogs, as well as well-funded interest groups, and media outlets and pundits generally sympathetic to conservative causes. These first-generation centers of influence in the Right Blogosphere, along with talk radio, have comprised the lion’s share of opinion-molding and issue-framing of conservatism ever since Rush Limbaugh and the EIB Network changed the way America thought and spoke about Conservatism. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 had a similar effect on the growth of A-list blogs, notably on the Right, Free Republic, Little Green Footballs, Michelle Malkin, Instapundit, Powerline, Captain’s Quarters, and Hot Air.
How do we counter that? If it is possible, and I believe it is, we need to find a way to change the playing field.
I’m not saying anything that hasn’t already occurred to the netroots of the political Left. They are years ahead of us in this arena, and quite frankly, anything we do isn’t going to have much effect on them at all. The only one on the Right that even comes close to competing with them is the Libertarian candidate. His grassroots success, for which the candidate himself claims no personal credit, is positively netroot-ish in its attitude, passion, and ability to manipulate second-generation tools and strategies.
The Huck campaign is doing some of this already. Raising 5 million dollars on line is nothing to sneeze at. Plus, the grassroots forum is another step in the right direction. In fact, I saw an article praising the Huck campaign’s use of the internet over at MyDD.com, comparing the campaign to Dean ‘03. High praise, indeed. But, to counter the influence of the attacks from the Right, we need to use a few more tools, and make a concerted effort to influence the news cycle.
Try this: Take a quick look at popurls.com and see the news of the day from social networking 2.0 perspective. It’s almost a chicken-egg type situation: does web 2.0 drive reporting of the top news stories of the day, or do the news stories of the day drive the social networking sites? The news cycle is a daily occurrence, even on “slow news” days. On those days, headlines from social networking sites may be 3 of the top 5 stories of the day, as reported by the main stream media. A-list bloggers and talk radio can drive 1 or 2 stories, but unless there is a breaking current events story, the left controls 60-80% of the news cycle by default.
Responses to campaign slurs and negative articles can achieve widespread visibility by a significant increase in friendly blogger “authority.” Authority is generally measured by incoming links to other blogs and overall traffic. Ranking services such as Technorati, TTLB, and Alexa use linkage and traffic to rank websites. Stories and web searches are often ranked by authority, with search engines providing access to the higher authority blog as the default choice. Another criterion for blog ranking is the number of RSS subscriptions from services like Bloglines. Blogs which consistently have the highest number of links, traffic, and subscribers are considered generally credible sources, and are often quoted by other providers of original content. A response linked by a large number of blogs goes to the top of the list of stories at Tailrank.com, and combined with a significant number of votes at Digg.com, has an opportunity to greatly influence coverage.
There are currently close to 800 bloggers on the Bloggers for Huckabee blogroll, many who are registered users in the grassroots forum, growing daily. Linkage to the rest of the grassroots would very quickly put friendly blogsites in the top percentiles of each of the ranking services. Authority assures that responses to negative reports are circulated and heard. Strategic linking of favorable articles and posts will give specific articles of interest an opportunity to rise to the top of the 2.0 sites, as users are constantly scouring news sites for popular articles.
There are enough motivated grassroots users to have a significant impact on targeting articles of interest for circulation.
Click this link to add the Bloggers for Huckabee blogroll to your website.
See also: When will the Right recognize the cost of conceding web 2.0?
Trackposted to:
Save Talk Radio, Thinkaware, Evangelicals for Mike, The Thomas Report, RightSmart, The Celebrity, 11 smiths for huckabee, Main Street America, NC for Huckabee, My Take, Daxology, Keepin it real, Huck the system, Christianity lived out, Teens 4 Huckabee, Liberty University for Mike Huckabee, Hairstyles Watch, Prezcast.com, Ags4Huckabee, Give hope another chance, President Huckabee 08, Faith for freedom, Fishing Polly J in the UK, My 2 cents, Rett Hatcher, and Christ Follower
Filed under: Bloggers, Election 2008, Huckabee, Web 2.0, conservatism
[...] cross-posted at Nuke’s [...]
Saturday Funny
[...] Take on the Importance of Blogging 4 Huckabee Posted on December 22, 2007 by christfollower Check out Nuke’s blog to read an excellent synopsis about the importance of the Web2.0 movement and how electoral [...]
Here’s one for nuke.
Huckabee: Stronger military, families
[...] Save Talk Radio, Thinkaware, Evangelicals for Mike, The Thomas Report, RightSmart, The Celebrity, 11 smiths for huckabee, Main Street America, NC for Huckabee, My Take, Daxology, Keepin it real, Huck the system, Christianity lived out, Teens 4 Huckabee, Liberty University for Mike Huckabee, Hairstyles Watch, Prezcast.com, Ags4Huckabee, Give hope another chance, President Huckabee 08, Faith for freedom, Fishing Polly J in the UK, My 2 cents, Rett Hatcher, and Christ Follower, cross-posted at Nuke’s [...]
Conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly says Huckabee “destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas, and left the Republican Party in shambles,” Schlafly charges, “Yet some of the same evangelicals who sold us on George W. Bush as a ‘compassionate conservative’ are now trying to sell us on Huckabee.”
Richard Viguerie remarked about Huck, “But while Gov. Huckabee stands strong on some issues like abortion that are important to social conservatives, a careful examination of his record as governor reveals that he is just another wishy-washy Republican who enthusiastically promotes big government.”
The Club for Growth, which Huckabee does not seem to get along with, had this to say about the Huckster: “Governor Huckabee’s record on pro-growth, free-market policies is a mixed bag, with pro-growth positions on trade and tort reform, mixed positions on school choice, political speech, and entitlement reform, and profoundly anti-growth positions on taxes, spending, and government regulation.
His recent refusals to rule out raising taxes if elected President-the cornerstone of a pro-growth platform-perhaps indicate which path he would choose.”
Ann Coulter dubbed Huckabee “the Republican Jimmy Carter,” and no sane conservative wants another Jimmy Carter in the White House.
Anti-Illegal immigration advocates say they fear Mr. Huckabee could repeat President Bush’s track record on immigration, which they say amounted to tough talk but a failure to follow through. Mr. Huckabee’s campaign admitted that they never followed through with signing an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to secure training for state police officers. Without it, they cannot enforce federal immigration law.
“This is a policy difference, but the facts are the facts — under Governor Huckabee’s administration, there was never even any effort to begin negotiating with Homeland Security,” said former state Rep. Jeremy Hutchinson, the Republican who sponsored the 2005 law.
Hucksters illegal-enabling attitude is apparent in a deal to establish a partially taxpayer-financed Mexican consulate office in Little Rock, a scheme involving the lease of building space to the Mexican government for $1 a year. Then there was Huck’s support of drivers’ licenses, government benefits and in-state tuition rates for illegals and his opposition to a bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote.
Betsy Hagan, Arkansas director of the conservative Eagle Forum and a key backer of his early runs for office, was once ‘his No. 1 fan.’ She was bitterly disappointed with his record. ‘He was pro-life and pro-gun, but otherwise a liberal,’ she says. ‘Just like Bill Clinton he will charm you, but don’t be surprised if he takes a completely different turn in office.’
Jennifer Rubin at the National Review summarized his record on taxes while serving as governor in Arkansas.
By the end of his second term he had raised sales taxes 37 percent, fuel taxes 16 percent, and cigarettes taxes 103 percent, leading to a jump in total tax revenues from $3.9 billion to $6.8 billion. The Cato Institute gave him a failing grade of ‘F’ on its fiscal report card for 2006 and an only marginally better but still embarrassing ‘D’ for his entire term.”
Rush Limbaugh remarked that “The Huckabee campaign is trying to dumb down conservatism in order to get it to conform with his record.”
Rich Lowry, the editor of the National Review, has said it would be political suicide to nominate him.
Conservative UCLA law professor Steve Bainbridge, libertarian Cato Institute scholar Michael Tanner, and libertarian-leaning columnist Deroy Murdock have presented some excellent reasons why anyone who cares about limiting the power of government has every reason to oppose Huckabee’s nomination.
Pat Toomey wrote an op-ed in the National Review exposing Huckabee’s “stunning record of big-government liberalism,” protectionism and support for unions. He explains that “the average Arkansan’s tax burden increased 47 percent” and that “state spending increased by 50 percent.”
Do Republicans and conservatives really want to elect another Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter?
Mitt Romney is the best conservative candidate to defeat the Huckster.
nice cut and paste there Denny boy