I buried the lede yesterday. My bad.
In writing my FAQ about The Pledge, I obscured my mini-analysis of who the signers are. In fact, I made a grave error in making that part a mere min-analysis, for the composition of the list is actually a very big deal.
If you look to the left of the pledge sheet, you’ll see a ton of bloggers have signed it. Yes, there are a couple of joke names. For instance, I doubt that Mickey Mouse of Disney.com really has his yellow knickers in a twist over the resolution. But, and this is important, there are fewer “joke” names on this list than I’ve ever seen on any petition of its kind. The always amazing N.Z. Bear has been watching the list like a hawk; it’s a fair guess that at least 95% and probably closer to 99% of the names are genuine.
The list contains almost a comprehensive list of the right wing blogosphere’s royalty, or at least the royalty that isn’t pseudonymous. Glenn Edwards, the Captain, Hugh, Rick Moran – they’re all there.
But with all due respect to the above-named royals, they’re not the ones that really matter. Political bloggers are without exception extremely politically active. They’re also, almost without exception, big-mouths. In “The Tipping Point,” Malcolm Gladwell referred to people like bloggers as mavens – big mouths who arrogate to themselves the job of convincing others of something that they believe in. As Gladwell pointed out, sophisticated marketing campaigns target mavens. They’re force multipliers who spread the word. With this vote on the resolution, the Republican Party is turning a lot of mavens against them.
WHAT ARE THE REPUBLICANS THINKING? A significant chunk of the conservative base was so dispirited by the way the Republican Party had governed that it didn’t feel like voting in 2006. Thanks to the magic of Ken Mehlman’s GOTV program, most of them got to the polls anyway. Problem was, many of them pulled the switch for the Democrats out of protest. Whoops!
If the Republicans were smart, they would see the 20,000 signatures on the petition as something much greater than a leading indicator. Instead, they should whip out their abacuses (somehow I don’t figure this group using anything as new-fangled as a calculator) and do some figurin’. Blog readers are an enormously desirable demographic. You’re much better informed than the general public, considerably wealthier and, from my personal experiences, better looking to boot. Almost needless to say, blog readers are much more politically active than normal people, both in terms of giving donations and volunteering.
So let’s assumer, just for a minute, that the typical signer of The Pledge gives $450 per election cycle to the Republican Party candidates. I think this is a conservative figure, judging by the messages I’ve received in my inbox. Given that 20,000 people have already signed, up the GOP has already cost itself $9 million. Given the way this is trending, this will be a pop in the wallet that the Republican Party feels, unless it somehow figures a way to marry Teresa Heinz Kerry.
SO IS THERE ANY HOPE THAT Republican Senators will see the light? Personally, I doubt it. Certain Republicans, especially those who are up for reelection in’08, have been trying to figure out a way to distance themselves from the war since the calamity of 11/7. The non-binding resolution farce is their pet trick du jour.
But hey, look on the bright side. Many times over the past six years, we’ve all said if we’re going to have Republicans in office who behave the way these guys do, why bother? “These guys” are at this very moment sowing their own political demise. The Spirit of ’94 died in the GOP a long time ago. We should have known all along that the Senators and Congressmen who killed it weren’t going to be the ones to bring it back.
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