Dissension In The Ranks
Noel Sheppard writes of the growing discontent many in the Kos camp feel over (a) enforced attempts at groupthink, (b) the unseemly embrace of DLC-friendly Mark Warner, and (c) the apparently related coziness between Kos and accussed stock manipulator Jerome Armstrong, who, you may recall, is a signatory to a consent decree with the SEC.
I don’t share Sheppard’s feeling that all this signals an implosion among the Kossacks; I do share his belief that Kos is becoming increasingly just another high-profile blogger:
…even Kos must understand that practicality and the desire to win at all costs are not strong traits amongst people with extreme political viewpoints, who obviously represents the bulk of his followers. As a result, this could leave him in the unenviable position of having to choose between his successful career as a blogger, or actually having a serious impact on politics, for it doesn’t seem likely that he can achieve both… at least, not with his current clientele.
Backup up the feeling that the bloom is off the rose is Kos’s Sitemeter – though he still receives a mind-boggling 400,000+ hits a day, it’s hard to miss the downward trend in traffic…
I think it’s fair to assume some seasonality and that traffic will go back up in the fall when people come back inside from the summer weather…maybe not though. I just am always weary of claiming a ‘trend’ when the chart is out of control (statistically speaking).
It will probably spike upwards a bit when the elections get underway in earnest, but you could liken this to the “shock jock” mentality at work here, when the audience eventually tires of the tricks and mock outrage and moves onto something even more outrageous, or at least unique. Now that the guy’s been exposed as basically a one – trick pony, what can he possibly do for an encore? Become respectable? Too late.
Well, apparentely 400,000 people respect him enough to visit him each day, or maybe more like 100,000 people who have four different computers. In any event, just stating my caution when trying to spot ‘trends’ in any group of data.
If the trend does start to appear organic, at least to Markos… what effect? Will he move closer to the DLC neo-cons? Closer to the hard-Lefty Kossacks? It is precisely like the calculations that must be made to actually WIN an election. If Kos proves himself the master of some sort of accomodation that keeps his base from aggressively shrinking (it can shrink quite a bit yet and still leave him the biggest dog on the porch by far) it will mean that there is electoral life yet in the lib/Left and Dems. That would be a sad occurence but somehow I doubt Kos is up to the statesmanship involved. Did you see him declare himself an enthusiastic 2nd Ammendment man? Oy! This issue isn’t the pivot point it was of course but that’s mostly cuz the Dems think/know/believe it is a loser. And it is. If Kos would become an issues man and actually lead some of the Armed Liberals and Gun-toting Liberals it would prevent or at least slow the Reddification of the nation. But then he would soon become, as you say, just an ordinary blogger/activist. I doubt he would relish that.