Jon Henke

Ed Cone interviewed TNR founder Jon Henke on rebranding the Right through the internet:

CIOI: What happened to the Right that makes a site like yours necessary?

Henke: People on the Left would like to believe that the philosophy has failed. People on the Right would like to believe the people have failed, if we just elect better people we'll be fine. I think both of those are off the mark. Fundamentally what failed was the movement itself. We erected a movement based on two ideas: elect Republicans, to limit government. They elected Republicans, and then they didn't have a politically viable way to actually limit government, and so they settled for the first -- and so instead of a vast right wing conspiracy we had a half-vast right wing conspiracy.

What needs to be fixed is the movement needs to organize itself to actually accomplish the second part of the goal. Just electing Republicans is not enough, what you get is a corrupt Republican Party that is not an effective vehicle for the actual goals of the movement.

CIOI: How can a blog help rebrand conservatism?

Henke: The real value of the Internet is that it allows you to target an audience. The people who read the Next Right are the influential activists, the people inside the Beltway, the coalition members, the political officers, the people at think tanks and advocacy organizations, the people who are most active within campaigns. We're aimed at online and offline influentials.

CIOI: What are you telling them?

Henke: The world is happening first online. Your opposition is communicating online, they are rolling out their product online, and they are focus-grouping on the Internet to find out what they need to be doing. The things that are going to drop onto your press secretary's desk next week are bubbling upon the web this week, or last month.

Let me know where you agree and disagree with Jon.

I’m late to posting this, as I’ve been traveling for a few days, but better late than never. The nice people at Bloggingheads.tv were kind enough to invite me to participate in Friday’s edition of The Week in Blog. I was joined by regular host Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis (to whom I am very grateful; he was very kind, patient and thoughtful).

I am particularly enjoying the commenters at Bloggingheads.tv, many of whom seem to think that, as far as monsters go, I'm tolerable.  My favorite, I think, is this one…

Overall, though, I think Jon did a good job of defending the indefensible. Hope he comes back.

Thanks!  I think.