Winning the Web

The Post’s Jose Antonio Vargas has a terrific article today analyzing the growing gulf between the Left and Right in terms of effective use of the Internet. Quite simply, progressives are kicking much conservative ass on the Web and that is not likely to change very soon. Our side raises money and gets people elected. Theirs parrots whatever foolishness happened to flow from the puffy, drug-addled maw of Rush Limbaugh.

The top three Democrats, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama and Edwards, amassed more than $14 million over the Internet in the first three months of 2007; in contrast, the top three Republicans, Giuliani, McCain and Romney, collected less than half of that, $6 million. Furthermore, ABC PAC, the conservative fundraising site, has raised $385 so far for Republican presidential hopefuls; Act Blue, its liberal counterpart, has collected about $3 million for Edwards alone.

That, dear friends, is pure dominance but it gets better. The folks on the Right that care about the Web and are trying bridge the gap seem pretty clueless to me. K. Daniel Glover, an editor for the conservative National Review, sees potential growth on the Internets because Fred Thompson, not even a candidate yet, has made contacts with some folks in the “right roots” and Minority Leader Boehner has joined Twitter. Really, read the article. I am not kidding. That is Mr. Glover’s progress. These people do not get it.

(Sidebar - Twitter is, to date, the most pointless application on the Web. If I do not ask, please assume that I do not care what you had for breakfast or that you are driving to work.)

Anyway, Vargas’s most insightful work helps to explain why the Left has made so much progress on the Web while the Right made so little.

But an underlying cause may be the nature of the Republican Party and its traditional discipline -- the antithesis of the often chaotic, bottom-up, user-generated atmosphere of the Internet.

Exactly. The Internet is disorganized, content comes from a million different authors, and only small segments share the same goal; just like the Left. It is a perfect match really. The Right is comprised of two main pillars; Christian Conservatives and small government Corporatist types. The Left is a patchwork of minorities, unionists, social liberals, feminists, environmentalists, and people who are scared of the nuts on the other side. The Left understands disorder. Chaos is our neighborhood, so naturally, we have home field advantage.