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Remainders: Seven messages
Jonathan Martin's Blog — Halperin counts seven McCain messages today, while Obama continues with "more of the same." The RNC Chairman race kicks off. Watch the campaign grind journalists' souls into the ground. Palin faces a new ethics complaint about using the state to pay for her kids' travel. McCain goes after Barney Frank. Patrick Ruffini wonders why conservative bloggers don't fundraise. McCain robocalls in Arizona. A group connected to McCain tries to distance itself from Khalidi. Howard Fineman is confused there's still a race. Could the ...

Conservative Blogging: It's More Than That
Riehl World View — h/t Instapundit on this post from Patrick Ruffini. Good discussion but it seems to me as a conservative blogger, no one is raising two key points. How is it I am supposed to get all fired up about raising money for a GOP that hasn't really looked conservative and perhaps not even worth supporting for a number of years? People will blog AND raise money for ...

Righting the Roots
Daily Pundit — What It Will Take to Build a Rightroots Movement | The Next Right Interesting discussion here. Pat Ruffini is too much of a wired-in RNC organization type, though, and he makes the classic mistake of believing that money is everything in politics. You can’t raise money when there’s nobody you want to give money to in order to help them get elected. This blog did a decent job, given its readership, of raising money for Fred Thompson - although the large bulk of our contributions came from one reader. But after Thompson imploded, I just couldn’t bring myself to even try to raise money for somebody simply because he was (nominally) ...

What It Will Take to Build a Rightroots Movement
Stop The ACLU — -By Warner Todd Huston & Patrick Ruffini I highly endorse what is presented here from Patrick Ruffini in regards to the Rightroots movement on-line. We have failed to rival the nutroots in effectiveness, but I think a lot of it is inherent in our own mental makeup. Conservatives do not do “join” well. It’s just a fact. However, we must intellectually over come that reticence to “join” if we expect our cause to win and flourish. But, I have to say we are all, even this new Rightroots effort, forgetting the single reason why we are not as successful as the nutrooters. There is ONE reason we cannot get traction. It isn’t lack of money, it isn’t lack of drive, focus or philosophy. ...

Building a Rightroots Movement
Outside The Beltway | OTB — Building a Rightroots Movement Patrick Ruffini takes up where Jon Henke and John Hawkins leave off, offering a lament that conservative bloggers don’t engage in activism to the extent that their lefty counterparts do, thus leading to the demise of Western Civilization as we know it. Righty Pundits vs. Lefty Activists Ruffini thinks the rightosphere is mired in 2003 and are too shy or aloof to use their blogs to raise money for Republicans, content instead to be mere pundits. Almost without exception, conservative bloggers are hobbyists, and those that aren’t are usually employed by old line conservative media. A lack of politically sophisticated ...

REMAKING THE RIGHTROOTS
Right Wing Nut House — The prospect of being slaughtered next Tuesday is concentrating the minds of some prominent conservatives wonderfully. Patrick Ruffini, Jon Henke, and John Hawkins are beginning to flesh out their thoughts on what a post election conservative on line community might want to accomplish in the future. Let’s take the meat of their arguments one at a time. Henke: ...

Missing The Point
Balloon Juice — Patrick Ruffini and the Next Right: What will it take to turn this around? If you’re a conservative blogger, the question you need to ask yourself is this. Is the main purpose of your blog to express your personal opinion? Or is its primary purpose to build political power for a cause? If you cannot answer yes to the latter, you’re probably not going to be comfortable with making the changes necessary to make online conservatism a political force to be reckoned with. This is not a criticism, but an observation. Most conservative blogs are still stuck in 2003—both in terms of the overwhelming focus on media criticism ...

American Conservatives Debate Building a New Movement
PoliGazette — Increasingly more American conservatives are joining a webdebate about how to prevent massive future losses (in elections), and how to rebuild the once so powerful and successful conservative movement. The main problem with the Republican Party and its activists is, the consensus seems to be, that they are still acting as if it is 2003. Republican Party strategists seem to believe that the tactics they have used for years will still work in the end, if only voters see that Democratic leadership and control of both Congress and the White House will not result in better policies. Conservative bloggers and activists, however, argue that this will not ...

10/30: Sex, Lies, and Videotape
Blogometer — ... : THOUGHT OF THE DAY: What It Will Take to Build a Rightroots Movement The Next Right 's Patrick Ruffini : "If you're a conservative blogger, the question you need to ask yourself is this. Is the main purpose of your blog to express your personal opinion? Or is its primary purpose to build political power for a cause? If you cannot answer yes to the latter, you're probably not going to be comfortable with making the changes necessary to make online conservatism a political force to be reckoned with. This is not a criticism, but an observation. Most conservative blogs are ...

Frames, beliefs and opposition groups
Newshoggers.com — ... However Patrick Ruffini in a post that attempts to spark a discussion on why there is no right wing equivilant to the netroots makes a bit of a blunder that will sink the effectiveness of any group that emerges from this or many other discussions (irregardless of Tuesday's results) ...

Into the Forest
Whiskey Fire — There is a great deal of discussion amongst the Online Conservative Intelligentsia, such as it is, about the Next Step Forward and Where Do They Go From Here after the stomping they will receive next Tuesday at the hands of a certain skinny mulatto. Most of this discourse suffers from the problem The Renegade discusses here (and here). The problem is ...

Daily Digest: Fighting for the Future of the Online Right
techPresident — The Web on the Candidates The Next Generation Right Roots: The Next Right's Patrick Ruffini has created a stir. Patrick's arguing that right rooters, or members of the conservative online class, need to quit trying to be the next George Will and focus on producing more and better Karl Roves. Less punditry, says Patrick, and more activism, with all that that entails -- strategizing, messaging, and shaking the coin cup for candidates on occasion. After some blowback, Patrick tried to clarify his argument. He's not talking about shilling for the GOP, he says. ...

Building the New Guards
The Next Right — Following up on the thoughtful posts by Patrick Ruffini (here and here) and John Hawkins (and by James Joyner, Dan Riehl, Melissa Clouthier and Rick Moran), I think there are a few important points to make about this project of creating online infrastructure.  I don't specifically disagree with Patrick Ruffini, but I do think he's omitting some important points. Organism: A good netroots movement is not a product of financial support.   While money can help elevate important voices, the Right does not lack a general political "noise machine".   We don't ...