For the first time since BlogNetNews started tracking on June 3, Palousitics is the #1 most influential political blog in Washington for the week of August 26!
Much of the credit belongs to Michael and his fantastic writing this week. His blog post on the Seattle PI's refusal to publish the pictures of two suspected terrorists was picked up by Orbumax and read by people all over the Northwest and the U.S.
In addition, a blog post about our old friend Professor John Streamas has been posted on a MSNBC forum.
As I told Rory Curtiss last week, I'm not sure how this gets measured. There are certainly blogs that get many, many more daily visitors and hits than we do, especially on the west side of the state. I can't really say if we deserve the #1 ranking or not. It is fun though, and an opportunity for me to thank everyone that's involved.
I think for our little town we do have influence. I can tell you that Palousitics is read by WSU students, faculty, staff and administrators (at 13.36%, wsu.edu is by and far and away the largest single domain for visitors to Palousitics), people from all walks of life and ideologies in Pullman and Moscow, members of the local media, and elected officials from Pullman to Colfax to Olympia.
I'd like to think Palousitics played a not insignificant role in the 2005 Pullman City Council and 2006 Whitman County elections. And we broke the story about Caitlin Ross' double voter registration that dogged her state representative campaign in 2006.
And Palousitics has been the mechanism for many Pullman stories to go national, such as my dealings with Michael Barbaro of the New York Times and, of course, our greatest accomplishment, the launching of the WSU College Republicans to national prominence. I'll never forget meeting with the CRs last September and telling them about the power of blogging and how maybe they could even get nationwide exposure. Little did I realize that two months later, Kiley Smith would be appearing before 1.6 million viewers on Hannity & Colmes. I'd talked to them about "Instalanches," and last April, current WSU CR president Danny Schanze got one on his first post.
We have some brilliant commentary from the contributors on this site like Michael, Paul, and Scotty to name a few (thanks for your first post this morning Bruce, very intelligent and well-stated), lots of witty humor, and lots of local news you won't find anywhere else, often well before anyone else reports it. Our regular commenters (for the most part) help as well. We may not always agree with each other on every issue, but it keeps things lively. All the energy generated serves to keep people coming back for more and the readership continues to grow. Special thanks also to April. Her often behind the scenes support, assistance and advice is invaluable and Palousitics is just as much hers as it is mine.
We've accomplished a lot. And I'm excited about the future!
8 comments:
How would all of your fans react, Town Blowhard, if they knew you were once a Democrat?
And who you are calling elitist? Didn't you graduate at the top of your class in college?
Hmmmmmmmm?
I would reply by saying that if Tom did graduate at the head of his class, then that proves that he is not an elitist. After all, he does not believe that he should force to live as he wants us to live, but advocates freedom to choose how we live. The elitists (think PARDners) think themselves so wise and wonderful that they should make our decisions for us. The elitist would consider his academic performance as proof of his qualifications to dictate to his inferiors (think John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, etc.).
And, if it is true that Tom was once a Democrat, I would recall the great Winston Churchill, who when asked about his political maturation said, "He who is not liberal when he is young has no heart... He who is not conservative when he is old has no brain."
I guess I have no heart. I've always been a Libertarian who now calls himself a Republican only because they offer me my only protection against Democrats and their totalitarian/defeatist inclinations.
I'd say I was once a liberal Democrat too. I'd also say I graduated at the top of my class too.
I grew up, saw the world and decided to be a contributor rather than a burden. Now I'm a semi-conservative who is still just as smart but much more experienced than I was back then.
Poor little Tommy Foibles. It's a shame you won't get to blather on so much in the paper anymore and share your extremist views with all your little buddies.
You are the one that should be run out of town. Where's the outrage?
I was once a Dem, too, even as far along the spectrum as the liberal persuasion.
What changed that? A number of things. Mainly, it had to do with actually engaging with the world as it really is, not as the classrooms around here model it and the obediently chanted slogans proclaim it to be. And, along the lines of what Barenjager said, actually building things of value and making investments taught me that much of what is said on the other side of the fence is pure lies.
It also helped that I returned to school for my MA, which gave me a second exposure to leftist ideals, right from the donkey's mouth. Call it one two-year long "wtf was I thinking?" moment. How about that? It was liberals that turned me away from liberalism. I suppose that I should thank you and yours for helping me see the light.
You'll find many in this camp who have a similar life story, Hector. Your perception that this is some ghastly revelation thus only demonstrates your ignorance.
I've been outed, and I wasn't even in!!
It's no secret that I was an officer in the Young Democrats long ago and that my first presidential vote was thrown away on Walter Mondale. I've talked about that with Scotty on The PES several times.
And okay, back in Virginia, after I became an active Republican, I worked on the campaign of a longtime family friend running as an independent. Later, that same family friend running as a Democrat asked me to manage his campaign for the Virginia statehouse. I declined because I had just accepted a job at SEL.
*YAWN* What else ya got?
Curious isn't it, that the worst slur that a liberal can come up with is that a now sensible person was once a Democrat. Surely those who have not yet come to their senses and are still Democrats well into middle age and beyond must occupy a much lower spot on the evolutionary scale.
Sun Tzu wrote:
Know your enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are sure to be defeated in every battle.
I'm glad I have the political background that I do. You have to understand where the other side is coming from in order to intelligently respond to their arguments.
For example, I've studied the Wal-Mart issue extensively and could argue both sides equally well. The "anti" viewpoint is easy. It's just emotion and unsubstantiated allegations. My respect for facts, logic, and principle, keep me on the "pro" side.
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