Joe Carter’s Excellent Insight
October 22, 2007 by Randy
Filed under Christianity, Current Affairs, Election '08, Life, People, Public Policy
Joe with Evangelical Outpost offers up his wise analysis of The Washington Briefing.
I found his whole post to be informative. What really stood out to me was his view of the conservative blogosphere being out of touch with social conservatives. He gives voice to something I have noticed but I guess had gotten used too.
1. The most significant insight I gained from The Washington Briefing was not about the candidates but about the bloggers: Right-leaning bloggers are out of touch with a large portion–if not the majority–of conservatives in America.
Anyone who wonders why the audience for the right-side of the blogosphere is stagnant at an estimated 200,000 readers should look at the supply and demand curve. The right side of the blogosphere continuously focuses on secondary issues and ignores the primary concerns of American conservatives.
I talked to the bloggers on the panel, many of whom are the same bloggers I read daily and interact with here in DC. Then I talked to the people from the audience, most of whom are not political junkies. The differences in the discussions was eye-opening. The top four issues that voters said were important to them are “life” (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, embryo destructive research, etc.), marriage, tax cuts, and permanent tax relief for families. Aside from tax cuts, these issues are rarely talked about by the bloggers on the Right. Three out of four issues are ignored–and this is just the top of the list.
The stark contrast between the heartland conservatives and the DC-centric bloggers became apparent in the panel discussion I moderated on Political Blogging. Although most of the panel members could be classified as moderately social conservative, few of them focus primarily on social conservative issues.
That’s the truth. I am not upset by any means but I have noticed that a few very popular bloggers are kind, agreeable and supportive of me and my main issue (dealing with homosexuality) when we are face to face, but they are loathe to address anything having to do with sexuality on their blogs. Granted… that is not the biggest or most popular, or only, social conservative issue. I don’t expect them to cover it on the same level as other issues… but they rarely if ever cover it.
I, like any red blooded blogger, like linkage, blog traffic and stuff :). It’s true… but not to the point of trying to pull eye teeth to make it happen. I actually don’t try to do anything but write a blog worth reading. It does seem that many moderate right to middle right bloggers are sticking with the safe controversies (fiscal, policy) by staying DC and MSM (Mainstream Media) centric. The social controversies are strongly rooted in faith and morality and in our culture it is not safe or popular to allow morality to determine anything much less your blogging of socially conservative issues. Those call for a type of personal transparency in public because morality is more “intimately” revealing than punditry on the next Congressional fiasco. Of course morality transcends the personal to the social. Again, I am not saying that it should be the only angle to blogging but it should at least be included and properly promoted in the “conservative” blogosphere.
Anyway, go read Joe’s post.
Technorati Tags: Joe Carter, Evangelical Outpost, homoesxuality, social conservatives, blogging, moderate, Republicans
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