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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Um . . . Heck Yeah We Are the Latter

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  November 20th, 2012 at 07:17 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

The hand wringing continues about the 2012 loss. This time it has moved to “conservative media.” Included in the Buzzfeed article is this:

John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary and a prolific tweeter, rejected the notion that Obama’s reelection represented a failure of the conservative media. But he said that as the GOP tries to widen its tent in the coming months and years, conservative sites will need to stay out of the way — or better yet, cheer on the effort.

He singled out RedState.com, which has earned credibility on the right, in part, by targeting vulnerable moderates in Republican primaries, and directing grassroots readers to defeat them. Podhoretz warned against the site’s “hunger and desire to establish an ideological party line and draw boundaries around it, and say anyone who’s not in this line should not be elected and should be destroyed.”

“A deliberate choice is going to have to be made,” he said. “Is RedState a news and information website, or is it an activist partisan Republican website pushing specific politicians? Regrettably, right now I think it’s more the latter than the former.”

[Editorial note: according to his twitter feed, John Podorhetz says BuzzFeed completely got his context wrong. No one should be surprised by that I suppose. Consequently, I've made adjustments herein to the original and added John Podhoretz's tweets about the context of his quotes.]

Who ever gave John Podhoretz, or anyone else for that matter, the impression we were anything but an activist partisan Republican website? About the only thing he got wrong there is “Republican” when the actual rule of thumb we use here is conservative in primaries and Republican in general elections. John Podhoretz on twitter, noting that BuzzFeed unsurprisingly took him out of context, writes, “Red State is free to do as it wishes; I think the approach is self-defeating, not malign”. He goes on to note that the BuzzFeed author “then quote[s] me suggesting I think Red State is a danger to conservative prospects, which is not fair.”

RedState is probably the most accurate barometer of the conservative movement outside Washington, D.C. We remain one of the few sites on the right where any conservative activist anywhere can create an account, get a diary, and write about what’s on their mind as a conservative in fly over country engaged in the fight for freedom. I think we have two or three of the front page writers who actually live inside the beltway. The rest of us are from all over the country, including me down in Georgia. With few exceptions, all of our front page contributors began as regular readers of RedState who were inspired to start writing as activists on the site.

We certainly provide news and information, but it is news and information conservatives are interested in and relevant to our mission. The mission is pretty damn simple: educate conservative activists by providing news and information relevant to the conservative movement, motivate conservative activists to get involved in the political process, and activate conservative activists within the political battlefield.

And I’m quite happy to take our track record this year. While we gladly supported Richard Mourdock, we did not support Todd Akin until he was the nominee and everyone abandoned him. We did join the NRSC is supporting Josh Mandel, but we early and aggressively supported Ted Cruz when few did and stood with Jeff Flake the whole time.

If you go back to 2010, we stood with the NRSC on Ron Johnson’s race, but we supported Rand Paul, Pat Toomey, Marco Rubio, and Mike Lee in the primaries. We took no position on Christine O’Donnell until towards the end of the primary season and only then did I support her and most of the site did not (she was already ahead 10 points in the polls). We warned against supporting Sharon Angle because of her erratic campaign style, but preferred her over that other lady. And to this day I’m quite happy to have stood with Ken Buck who undoubtedly would have won but for the complete meltdown of the Colorado Republican Party and GOP gubernatorial nominee who dragged down virtually every Republican in the state.

We helped stop SOPA and were probably more effective on that front than most sites on the left. We helped lead opposition to Harriet Miers and the Bush Immigration legislation in 2005. We rallied conservatives to fight for “cut, cap, and balance.” We fought hard for the earmarks moratorium. We’ve continued to push Republicans in Congress to hold their ground on life issues.

More often than not RedState has been shoulder to shoulder with groups like Club for Growth, the Senate Conservatives Fund, Ending Spending, Heritage Action for America, American Majority Action, and the Madison Project. We’re not afraid to be the last conservative group still standing on the ramparts fighting because we’ve seen too often the GOP surrender to their own shadows.

I’m quite proud of RedState’s record.

We were the first national site to champion Marco Rubio as early as February of 2009. We were the first national site to champion Nikki Haley as Governor of South Carolina. We were one of the first sites nationally to support Ken Cuccinelli as AG of Virginia. Also in 2009, we were the first national site to champion Mike Lee as a primary challenger to Bob Bennett in Utah. We were one of the first national sites to support Rand Paul against Trey Grayson. We stood with Pat Toomey even before Arlen Specter bolted to the other side. We’ve supported Ted Cruz as a challenger to the Texas GOP establishment going all the way back to 2009. We were one of the very few sites anywhere to support Rick Scott for Governor in the Florida Republican Primary. Go back to our founding in 2004 and the very first time we weighed in on a political race. The very first year of RedState’s life, in the very first campaign we participated in, we sided with the outsider. His name is Tom Coburn and we went to war for him against the establishment’s pick, Kirk Humphreys.

I’m quite happy with our track record of moving the GOP to the right and I do not view it as “self-defeating”. I make no bones about it. It is a core mission of the site. It always has been. In general elections, RedState will find itself on the side of John Podhoretz and much of the GOP more often than not. But we’re absolutely not afraid to be on the grassroots conservative side in the primaries. It’s who we are.

There’ll be no hand wringing here and there sure as hell won’t be any apologies for fighting for what we believe in.

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COMMENTS

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  • PGDeFreese

    The only failure of the conservative media was that it lacked the strength to counter the overwhelming influence of the mainstream media. Mitt was not charismatic enough to defeat Obama’s cult of personality and the media effectively covered the stink of failure emanating from his campaign. People, good, conservative, smart people, that unfortunately rely upon these sources of information decided to stay with the devil they know because they were left with choice of a MItt that was “no better” or “worse” than what we already had.

    Turn it up. RedState needs to be stronger and promote other media sources that speak bluntly and without reservation about conservative values – we need contrast… and volume.

  • raginpatriot

    Erick, thank you. Redstate is part of the solution, while the GOP establishment is part of the problem.

  • timcooper62

    We should listen to the Republican “experts” They really nailed it…..yeah right. Rove can shove his whiteboard where the sun don’t shine and Morris can help him.

  • junglecogs

    Until we find a way to get tough on Democrat election fraud, all this talk is wasted energy.

  • oldtownyankee

    And we are here to stay. Redstate and sights like Redstate is were good solid American values and ideas are debated by true conservatives. The conservative resurgent will happen here. I’m so glad that I found redstate, it has been my only refuge from the insanity that I have to deal with on a daily basis up here in Moonbat Massachusetts.

  • Derek E. Hopper

    Absolutely and Completely!

  • tngal

    This and other conservative sites have 2 years to hone in on squishy candidates and show why they would not make good leaders. It stands to reason they’ll attempt to make the sites ineffectual. They’ll push that moderate tone early and often. Or, maybe their mad because a lot of people didn’t give full throated devotion to Romney. We voted for him and occasionally squeeked nice things about him, but we didn’t exactly lead a party-line parade screaming awsomeness. Have you noticed how “towing the party line” is really getting to be tug of war.

  • red_oakster

    More not less. If Red State has a weakness, it is in its failure to get behind more candidates in more races in more states. Red State could be talent scouting a lot more that it has-especially in House races and in Senate races in purple states. Montana and North Dakota in 2012 come to mind. That said, the NRSCC has said that they will reach out to conservative activists this time as they search for candidates. Red State should take them up on the offer.

  • conservativecurmudgeon

    J-Pod ain’t Norman, that’s been clear for a very long time…

    I think the GOP needs to get down to some serious brass tacks now, and answer a simple question: Barack Obama received some 10 million fewer votes than in 2008, and yet Mitt Romney received even fewer.

    Why?

    The answer, of course, is blindingly clear to anyone whose mind is not befogged with the Business of Professional Politics (where politics is seen more as a job of marketing to achieve power, rather than a righteous ideological battle to effect the outcome of our very lives): Mitt Romney lost because he was Mitt Romney.

    Not because he didn’t attract enough “Hispanics”, not because he wanted to lock up women and force them to have fourteen children, not because he wanted to drag the country back to the 1950′s: Mitt Romney lost because, at his core, he alienated large swaths of folks who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Obama again, and should have been his natural allies, — but couldn’t they pull the lever for him, either.

    Why the alienation? I think it’s part of the Perot-Ron Paul dynamic: Far too many people don’t think their votes matter because they see no difference, no light, between a Republican candidate for president, and a Democrat candidate for president. However ignorant this position may be, it is a powerful force that makes people sit home. The proof is in eighty years of pudding: Even during Reagan, the government has made a remorseless advance, never once receding– and thus, larges swaths of voters think it doesn’t make a hell of a lot of difference WHO you vote for. All you ever get is more and more and more government.

    And when you have a candidate whose life and record in government is fairly limited, and that which DOES exist shows a supine weakness to embrace the Democrat world-view that activist government fixes things (when human experience shows it only BREAKS things), –like Mitt Romney– then all that does is feed this alienation.

    Mitt Romney is a thoroughly decent man. He is a good man. But, he manifestly isn’t a conservative. What is his record on this score? Not very good, sadly, and that’s why so many of us traditionalist-constitutionalists were very, very skeptical of him.

    ..and why so many in the broader electorate was, too,

    If the Obama campaign had taken the Clinton advice, and pasted Romney as a political flip-flopping empty suit with no discernible core, he likely would have lost even worse than he did, because, unlike the class warfare crap they unleashed, it had the odor of truth.

    The only way back to the White House isn’t through Mexico, or the women’s powder room. It’s through lion-hearted, full-throated, vigorous, no-holds-barred, American Tradtionalist Conservative Constitutionalism. And that means real, palpable, observable reductions in government power and influence.

    What the hell good is a big tent, if the roof is full of holes?.

  • amdgwalking

    Being on the losing side doesn’t mean being on the wrong side. Making squishy right and hard left own this mess is the challenge before us.

  • gerbco

    I just found your site and I don’t think you should change it from what i read so far you are mostly positive and add to the discussion. (although I only agree with about 40% of it). Disclaimer I am a Democrat from NY. But I vote 40% republican in local elections. The first time I was eligible to vote (age) I voted for George W Bush in 2000 and honestly i regretted it. I have voted blue nationally ever since. I won’t do name calling or petty back and forth arguing. I am college educated, of hispanic decent, and pay 5 figure federal taxes! (which I’m not thrilled about) I will come by and check out your articles. Best of luck!

  • rkinroanoke

    Grandfather -actually. The process included re-entering the UIS legally after he was married to a citizen and with children. He actually had to leave the US and go through the immigration process. Many former illegals did this. Also had to take civics classes and pass a test, He always said this was the easiest part because immigrants then (legal and illegal) were coming to the US because they knew about the US and its history and laws. No one was offering anything besides an opportunity to be what you could make of yourself; that included the freedom to starve to death. The 1920s were different than the 2010s.
    Generally – I agree with much of Reagan’s position. People who have put down roots here and become “Americans” with families and jobs should not be rounded up. Those who are here and are not making an effort to assimilate or are committing crimes (other than simply being here) should be sent back. That we are supporting other people’s criminals in our jails is laughable.

  • westcoastpatriette

    Oh, thanks for sharing that. Interesting.

  • septembergurl

    There is a great deal here that is important & that I agree with — especially your point about over-interpreting this election.

    One point of fact, I have read that Romney’s campaign made a deliberate decision not to respond to the post-primary attacks on Romney for his Bain connection by pushing back with a more accurate and appealing image of Romney’s basic decency, generosity, humaneness. This was because they worried that focusing on Romney’s character would soon take them into the weeds on Mormonism, tied up as it was to Romney’s sense of social responsibility, etc. That was perhaps a mistake.

    But the second-guessing, as you say, is pointless. From my point of view, if you had told me in 2009 that Obama would lose 10% of his 2008 vote in 2012, and that our candidate would win the Independent vote, I would have been incredulous and thrilled. As it was, in 2009 I anticipated eight years of Obama, followed by decades of Democrap liberal rule. After 2010 I recalibrated. Possibly Obama could be held to a much closer contest (though the EC was always extremely tough) as actually happened.

    What I now realize is that it might not be possible for the Republican party, as constituted now, with its geographical and demographic bases, to ever defeat Obama. It’s like Republicans trying to figure out how to defeat FDR. They ran a Midwestern isolationist governor, an internationalist country club managerial type, a Northeastern RINO, and got clobbered each time. Against Obama we ran a standard issue National Security Republican and a standard issue pro-business Republican. In normal circumstances they would have defeated a Democrap candidate like, say, Kerry or Biden.

    Lastly, there was a concerted effort to drag Obama over the finish line by overwhelming positive media in the last week of the campaign. He would doubtless have won anyway, but it would have been closer. It was widely understood, also, that the media would call states very quickly for Obama if they could, while delaying calls for states where Romney might be competitive. And this is what happened, contributing to the sense of a landslide for Obama, which did not in fact occur. Though the early calls doubtless helped accelerate the collapse of the Republican vote in california. romney has incidentally won more votes than McCain did as these last votes are counted.

    Your overall point is correct though. To most voters coming to terms with the election, the economy was slowly improving, Obama needed more time, and Romney seemed kind of extreme and a cold hearted businessman.

  • gerbco

    i see the tags less relevant as I see some ideas that would be considered conservative to be shunned by traditional conservatives (drug laws, international meddling) I would say I really don’t like much of the foreign policy of the Bush era, it was a race to see who could please israel more. I also don’t like being preached to in terms of religion But I do enjoy the lower tax and more personal responsibility that republicans used to preach. I am also not in favor of abortion on demand on humanitarian grounds, not religious ones. I think health care costs have been out of control for a very long time.. i think obamacare is a misguided approach but I also think not articulating a viable alternative made no sense to the people I know. The prior system was broken and just going back to it wasn’t a fix.

  • gerbco

    my dad came here in the late 60′s early 70′s went back, he was an engineer on visa. but central american proxy wars changed everything.. had political assassinations in my family. My parents didn’t comer here illegally personally but the way things were I wouldn’t blame them if they did.

  • westcoastpatriette

    Another interesting story…political intrigue and all. I think it’s hard for Americans who have never been outside the country to understand the allure for so many who do anything to get here and stay here.

  • Bill S

    That’s nice.

  • raginpatriot

    Reagan won. George W. Bush, who wasn’t an ideological conservative but was portrayed as one by the media, won. George H. once he reverted to form, Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney, none of whom were ideological conservatives, lost. And so your point is?