Jonathan V. Last of the Weekly Standard examines a leftist's comparison of the blogosphere's right and left. Is the right stagnating as a medium, even a political force? Is it a game for the big guys? Says one rightist commenter:
I did a little blogging last year. And I did get mentions on the big guys blogs, one from Jim Geraghty at NRO, and a Hugh Hewitt special and one from [Jonathan V. Last]. But nothing could sustain that traffic. I blogged daily for awhile on a number of topics to see my traffic down to two diehards. I thanked them for their loyalty and closed shop.
Welcome to the Bell Curve and the free market. Sites on the lower half of the monitored blogosphere receive one hundred or less visits a day, and it's reasonable to assume that a good number of those — as is the case for this weblog — are Google stumblings. That's hardly a reason to be cynical about blogging or the value of methods employed by each of the two political wings. It's the reflection of one of the most meritocratic, competitive marketplaces that exists today. For the right, links from Glenn Reynolds do not make stars: they help, but success is dependent upon knowledge, writing skill, relevance and — most painfully fortuitous — fashionability. Many good writers, from the count of their audience size, work without receiving wide recognition. Fortunately, writers who may be adequate writers and excellent bloggers have refined, promoted and expanded the medium to where it can connect to mainstream, elite channels of news and opinion. Remarks, commentary, essays and links travel quickly and far. As has been described many times before, weblogs form a collective whose individual members — bloggers or readers — provide information, expertise or opinion beyond the ability of a single top-tier blogger or institution. One man can contact and impress upon another to post a document that will be read by hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of readers on the night of the Democratic presidential nominee's speech; accomplished by just one e-mail. Do professionals lead the blogosphere today? Yes, but behind them comes an age of citizen media.
If success is material gain, the rightist bloggers are succeeding. I would suspect it is because the right wing is entrepreneurial and willing to let independent profit be its own measure of worth, while endowed with progressive and inspiring ideas; the left wing clings to 20th-Century statism and explores late-millenium nihilism, mostly translated into a ubiquitous and angry language. There is a danger to concentration when it is for the wrong purpose. We are told the left conscripts and assigns; the right will take a look at you if you're judged as good enough. Conversations and exchanges occur on both sides; the right, however, is less concerned than the left about the simulation of a community. The right's fortune returns us to the question: are rightists well-served by their own design? A good capitalist would rather see seven out of ten rise to great heights than all of them by just an inch — and through no power of their own.