Donors

I've been meaning to write about this for a week, but work commitments beckoned. Nonetheless, it is still worth noting that something stunning almost happened last week: a huge piece of lefty online infrastructure nearly collapsed, when Soapblox sustained hacker attacks and was nearly shuttered by the developer who ran it part-time. Seeing the danger, the progressive community online has rallied to Soapblox's aid, vowing to raise the money necessary to defend it from further attack.

What is Soapblox? It's a self-service tool to build a community blog with user diaries and a recommendation engine out of the box, and runs most of the influential progressive state blogs in the country, in addition to influential national blogs like Open Left and Swing State Project. It's also another thing that they have and we don't -- though it's a little known fact that Soapblox is actually open to conservatives (see Red Mass Group).

I don't think it's any secret that the conservative blogging scene at the state level is woefully inferior to its lefty counterpart. Technology is only part of it; the bigger issue is a lack of willing bloggers with the political sophistication to drive unique and compelling content (this is an issue I'll have an announcement on in the coming days). This isn't to say that there aren't great conservative state blogs: Minnesota Democrats Exposed (run by Michael Brodkorb, a former communications director at the state party), Sound Politics (raised up in the crucible of the WA-GOV theft of 2004), Right Michigan (run by former campaign staffer Nick De Leeuw), and the aforementioned Red Mass Group (run by Rob Eno, a former research director for GOP campaigns in the Bay State). While I could mainly pinpoint this handful of excellent righty state blogs, virtually every state has a thriving progressive hub that the political class in that state looks to and which drive left-of-center storylines with the statehouse media.

This is really unfortunate, because we know works on state and local blogs: great content, usually driven by former campaign operatives who know exactly where the bodies are buried, combined with a great community, which Soapblox enables by automating the process of standing up user diaries. Counterintuitively, diaries and comments are even more important on a local blog despite its smaller scale because most of the participants actually know each other, leading to vibrant backchannel discussions and a watercooler effect. Occasionally, this incestuous environment leads to things getting super-vicious as when threats of outing shuttered the anonymous Caucus Cooler and Krusty Konservative blogs covering the Iowa caucuses in 2007.

However essential Soapblox may be to fostering the local liberal blogosphere, how they did it shows the danger to conservatives who may be looking to stand up and/or fund similar technology projects in the wake of Obama opening our eyes to this years too late.

The progressive movement has a small group of very wealthy donors who:

• Focus on state-based infrastructure.
• Invest in a capacities-based model of building new political infrastructure.
• Build outside the Democratic Party. This gives these donors many more opportunities to ensure that the organizations they fund stay true to the political ideas they care about.
• Are mission-based. They are investing because they care about the results, not because they care about transient power, glory or bragging rights.
• Provide day-in and day-out leadership.

Pro-liberty forces can expect losses in the future that make November 4 look like a stroll in the park in the absence of:

• Empowered, mission-based leadership from donors.
• A focus on investments in states.
• The same quantity of cold hard cash in infrastructure.  The left's investment in this area has exceeded investments by those who are pro-liberty in the last four years by at least ten-to-one.
• Adoption of a capacity-based perspective on how to effectively engage in the modern political environment. 

There are just as many very wealthy people who believe in the pro-liberty vision as there are very wealthy donors who believe in progressive ideals.  Does the pro-liberty side have a group of visionary, committed donors like Tim Gill and Pat Stryker in Colorado?

Many people in the traditional center-right movement who have access to donors appear at times to be conveying a message to those donors resembling:

• If you give us more money, we'll take care of this problem for you.
• Otherwise, don't worry your pretty little head.

What must instead urgently be conveyed to pro-liberty benefactors is a vision that they:

• Adopt an empowered leadership approach to political investments.
• Invest in their state, looking for other donors to collaborate with.
• Invest outside the party structure so people and organizations can be held accountable to a mission-based, pro-liberty perspective.

I believe in political ideals that assert the fundamental role of individual liberty in a society where human beings flourish.  I also believe that the alternative progressive vision will lead to widespread misery, against the wishes and hopes of those who promote this way of ordering society.    The stakes are high.   We need empowered, active donors to create a level playing field in the contest between these two competing visions.