Counterweight

MyLeftNutmeg, long noted for their bottomless barrels of wisdom, nonetheless has an insightful post today on the status of activist blogging across the nation and in Connecticut. Liberal bloggers have, for a cohort of reasons, seem to have taken the lead in online activism and taken it further: "Even better, some have gone a step further by leveraging their online presence into offline action. This maturation of state blogging is truly exciting." They detail several states - Texas, California, Virginia, and Connecticut - where the 'netroots have turned their 2am naked rantings about politics into tangible policy advocacy.

Conservatives have been, admittedly, much slower on the uptake than liberals when it came to the blogosphere - largely from a sense of thrift: we had the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, the White House, and a growing majority in the U.S. Supreme Court. Right-leaning people didn't need to sit at their computers and wax sardonic about the "people in power". More specifically in Connecticut, the spirit of local Republicans has been terribly repressed by continued Democratic dominance.

Nationally, our side is growing. The first big stop for any right-minded websurfer has long been the online message boards at FreeRepublic. Frequently the target of haughty smears by Kossacks (readers of the liberal blog DailyKos) for its decidedly homespun image and hawkish conservatism, FreeRepublic has been a bulwark for online conservatives. Slightly newer and more developed, RedState is quickly rising to be a strong challenger to DailyKos. The much-noted Instapundit is another hotspot. These blogs, however, tend to reflect a much more strident conservative view than is popular in the northeast. Here, too, we Connecticut Repbulicans run into a problem - so-called 'moderate' Republicans - though the tag may very well be a misnomer - do not have to go as far to find common ground with people on issues. It is when people are very liberal or very conservative do they need to go to the Internet to find people with whom they identify. As a result, there really isn't a single 'moderate' blog that finds widespread acclaim. Even . The audience just isn't the same.

The pedigree of this site, The Everyday Republican, is the first big step we Connecticut Republicans can take to building an online community of activists. We know our view aren't out of touch - when we get candidates to make the case effectively for our ideas, we usually do well; Mayor Tim Stewart in New Britain, where registration heavily favors Democrats, Mayor Seb Giuliano in Middletown, where registration heavily favors Democrats, Mayor Dick Moccia in Norwalk, all across the state. We must heed the example of our liberal brethren and become a counterweight to their efforts in Connecticut so that the case for our values can be made as effectively as they make their case. When that happens, we win.