With the turn of a phrase, Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann seemed to sum up last weekend’s RightOnline conference, an annual gathering of conservative activists.
“The sleeping giant is awake,” she declared, drawing a thunder of applause and cheering that could be heard across the fifth floor of the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, where the two-day event was held.
For years, the progressive Netroots Nation conference had monopolized the discussion about online activism. Republicans held the White House and Congress until November 2006, a reality that sparked a fury on the left and motivated them to dominate the online world.
The election of Barack Obama, however, turned much of that on its head.
For the first time ever, conservative blogs hold the top two slots in Technorati.com’s politicsl blog ranking, pushing The Huffington Post, the long-reigning champion, to the fifth slot. Conservative blogs also make up half of the top ten political blogs on the Web, while the distinctly liberal blogs only claim two spaces.
I had written a long post connecting these two thoughts, but the computer ate it. I blame Erik Telford.
LAS VEGAS — Excuse the long blog silence, but I spent most of the Right Online conference shadowing the Christine O’Donnell campaign team. They’re trying to raise awareness among conservative activists of the crucial opportunity in the Delaware GOP Senate primary, which I wrote about last week at The American Spectator, and Friday here on the blog.
Anway, as longtime readers know, my idea it that there’s only one way to do campaign coverage: Go all-in. So for the past three days, I spent a lot of time with Team O’Donnell, sitting in on meetings that were “totally off-the-record,” according to sources close to the campaign.
That’s a phrase that’s become kind of a running joke with me. “Sources close to the campaign” are, as often as not, guys I’ve hung out — even guys whose sofas I’ve crashed on. The O’Donnell campaign just recently hired Yates Walker, whom you may remember from the Doug Hoffman campaign in NY-23. O’Donnell’s campaign manager is Matt Moran, who filled the same role for Hoffman, and their e-campaign team is Eric Odom and Steve Foley, whom I’m sure you remember from their 73Wire coverage of Hoffman.
In other words, “We’re getting the band back together,” to borrow a line from The Blues Brothers. The O’Donnell campaign is benefitting from lessons learned in the wild NY-23 campaign, which turned into a national conservative crusade in the last three weeks before the election. (See “Battle Cry in the North Country,” in the December/January American Spectator.) With seven weeks remaining until the Sept. 10 primary, O’Donnell seems to be very near a point of breaking through at the national level that Hoffman didn’t reach until there was less than a month to go before the election.
Anyway, so it’s a pretty exciting time, but this kind of close-range coverage means I spend a good deal of time having conversations I can’t report. The fact that I just shlepped my luggage from the fabulous Venetian Resort Hotel halfway across town to Odom and Foley’s condo, via a Las Vegas transit bus, is also an experience that doesn’t necessarily make for great blog fodder.
I’m about to get a long-overdue nap, but not before I give a special shout-out to those of you who have hit the tip jar. Also, Eric Telford and the crew at Americans for Prosperity for putting together a great conference, even if I still wasn’t invited to be on any of the panel discussions. I’ll have some more photos and videos from Right Online later, but for now I’ll leave you with this “man-on-the-street” interview:
Yes, that’s Christine O’Donnell beside the pool at the fabulous Venetian Resort Hotel. And, no, she wasn’t wearing a bikini. She did, however, agree to wear the famous fedora I borrowed from Da Tech Guy.
I ran into Evan Sayet here at Right Online and he dropped by my posh suite here at the fabulous Venetian Resort Hotel. Evan asked if he could log on and check his e-mail:
Celebrities using my computer — how cool is that? It’s like getting re-Tweeted by Alyssa Milano or something. Anway, Evan then generously agreed to a brief video interview:
Man, I’ve got to work on my interview technique. Evan cracked me up during the interview as we made reference to his “opening act.” He discussed his famous 2007 Heritage Foundation speech:
During his Friday talk at Right Online, Matt Lewis offered some very helpful advice to activists about how to build online strength with Twitter contacts (hint: re-Tweets and hashtags) and talked about the importance of developing a good e-mail list.
Matt’s a really awesome guy, who had me on his podcast twice this past week to discuss the intellectual history of the paleconservative-vs.-neoconservative schism. Part One here. Part Two here.
Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey said Allahpundit couldn’t make it to Right Online. Of course, the mysterious Allah could possibly show up and we wouldn’t know it.
Herman Cain prepares for a live broadcast of his radio show with Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle.
Christine O’Donnell with Paul Crouteau of From the Right Radio.
John Fund of the Wall Street Journal updates his Facebook page.
Sharron Angle interviewed by KARN radio.
The legendary Phil Kent welcomed me to Vegas with a thoughtful gift.
Christine O’Donnell is going on the offensive in her bid for the Delaware Senate seat vacated by Vice President Joe Biden, in a race that could open up a new front in the war between Tea Partiers and those they describe as ‘RINOs,’ or Republicans in Name Only.
O’Donnell, considered an underdog for the GOP nomination, took a swing at her opponent, Republican Rep. Mike Castle, in a release sent to supporters and the media Thursday.
“Mike Castle’s voting record proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he is for special interests, against the free market, anti-Second Amendment, pro-abortion and he’s even for sanctuary cities. It’s a preposterous record,” O’Donnell said. “Calling himself a Republican is borderline schizophrenic, confused about his own political identity.” . . .
Read the whole thing. Christine O’Donnell is here at Right Online and making a strong impression on the activists in attendance. Of course, she had us at “hello,” but it’s nice to see others begin to acknowledge the significance of the Sept. 14 primary in Delaware.
About time I got this kind of recognition, considering that we’re now just three weeks away from the 2010 Right Online Conference in Las Vegas.
I took a fast right on Russell, then a left onto Maryland Parkway . . . and suddenly I was cruising in warm anonymity past the campus of the University of Las Vegas . . . no tension on these faces; I stopped at a red light and got lost, for a moment, in a sunburts of flesh in the cross-walk: fine sinewy thighs, pink mini-skirts, ripe young nipples, sleeveless blouses, long sweeps of blond hair, pink lips and blue eyes — all the hallmarks of a dangerously innocent culture.
I was tempted to pull over and start mumbling obscene entreaties: “Hey, Sweetie, let’s you and me get weird. Jump into this hotdog Caddy and we’ll flash over to my suite at the Flamingo, load up on ether and behave like wild animals in my private, kidney-shaped pool . . . .”
Sure we will, I thought. But by this time I was far down the parkway, easing into the turn lane for a left at Flamingo Road. . . .
— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
The list of speakers for this year’s conference includes Erick Erickson and Ed Morrissey — both of whom are far more interesting than me, which is why they’re on the list and that bastard Erik Telford didn’t invite me, just like he snubbed me last year.
Obviously, Telford fails to take me seriously. After I spared him the long-promised ass-whupping at the Pittsburgh conference, he mistook mercy for weakness.
