Kevin Drum and
Atrios talk about angst within the conservative blogging world over being ignored, while liberal bloggers are embraced by the establishment.
That's sort of true and not true. As for conservatives being ignored, as Atrios notes, yeah, that part is true. Not only are conservative blogs redundant in the conservative media pantheon, but they have not proven adept at raising money. And in politics, raising money is the first, second, and third most important thing. And in any case, they have plenty of party operatives, like Red State's Mike Krempasky, doing the blogging thing, as well as existing members of their Right Wing Noise machine, like Hugh Hewitt and Malkin. They don't need the citizen riff raff.
As for Democrats, conservatives like to think that sites like Daily Kos meet weekly with Howard Dean and Harry Reid, as though we're an integral part of some well-oiled machine. And that's also not true. We get their press releases. The same press releases all other media outlets get. And, as far as Reid's office is concerned, they answer any questions I send their way, just like any other media outlet. It's helpful, but hardly earth shattering.
When they do pay attention, most of the time it's naked attempts to score cash from the community, as though we're some kind of ATM. And when they don't ask for money, and try to tackle an issue, parts of the blogosphere erupt in hysterics. You'd think Obama killed everyone's first born to hear some of you wail about his diary. There's a fine line between reasoned discussion and attacks, so if you're a Democratic politician, you sort of have to be a masochist to try and engage the netroots in discussion.
On the other hand, liberal bloggers are definitely getting attention from the folks wiring the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy. No money yet, but there's hope to start building some blog-supporting infrastructure. A think tank, maybe some fellowships, book deals, cross-media promotions (like my weekly spot on Majority Report Radio), those sorts of thing. Just like the conservative movement has worked to support its best writers and build a wide-reaching media machine, so too is the progressive movement seeking to mimic that. And while the conservative movement was built in the 70s and 80s for a different generation, ours is being built on a digital foundation.
So liberal bloggers are currently more salient to the future of the progressive movement than is the case in the conservative side. Conservative bloggers on the other hand, especially those not already plugged into their media machine, are simple redundant. There are other media outlets that promote their message better (like Drudge on the internet), and there are other mechanisms that organize better (like the religious right). So what exactly do they bring to the table not already covered by someone else? Not much.