Truly Flattered

I’m amazed how much this Web site has become a curiosity. Jason Bane, the face of the Dead Governors’ site, has included Mount Virtus in his inquiry into why the right side of Colorado’s blogosphere seems less active for 5280 Magazine:

Of all of the conservative, politically-active blogs out there in Colorado, Blog It Right and Mt. Virtus spend the most time talking politics on a local level. Mt. Virtus, run by a guy who works at the conservative Independence Institute, probably does the best job of keeping focused on local politics, but he sometimes goes weeks without posting something new….

It’s also interesting to compare the traffic to some of these blogs. On the conservative side, Blog it Right only averages about 28 visitors a day, while Mt. Virtus gets about 42 visitors a day (the statistics are publicly available on their Web sites). SoapBlox Colorado, meanwhile, averages around 450 visitors a day.

Flattery will get you nowhere, Mr. Bane. Seriously, though, a quick perusal through these pages would tell anyone that this is my personal site and that I’ve never claimed it to be focused exclusively – or even primarily – on local politics. As a personal site, it reflects my personal views and interests and occupations at the time I’m writing. When nothing is posted for two weeks, it’s because my computer was afflicted by a virus, and then I traveled for all-day conferences out of town. My site can hardly be compared apples-to-apples with something like SoapBlox, which is an organized group blog with many different contributors.

Yes, I currently get only 42 visitors a day (up to 46 now), a trend that tends to happen following a vacation from blogging. I averaged many hundreds of visitors a day back during the Jay Bennish controversy. At other times, my traffic has gone up, as well. For whatever reason, fewer people read my site.

But the main point is that as much as I can be interested by politics, I do not obsess over it. I have a full-time job and then some on my plate, and a wide variety of outside interests and activities. Conservatives tend to take a less active interest in local politics for a variety of reasons, one of which is explained well by commenter Kevin Jones:

… I think the GOP today is weak on local issues for historic reasons. Frank Meyer’s fusionism cobbled together diverse groups into a conservative coalition for the purpose of defeating communism. This was a national, even nationalist endeavor, with few specifically localist concerns that weren’t just national causes in miniature.

What’s more, the Supreme Court has refocused social conservatives’ own efforts on the national level by itself nationalizing local morals legislation, mainly by pulling newly-invented rights out of its Honorable ass.

When you say that on CO conservative blogs “You’ll frequently find discussions of religion, as well as diatribes on national political issues, but very rarely do you get much that is focused on local politics,” I think you’re touching on another key factor. It’s no secret that the Dems are a more openly secularist party, and politics easily becomes an ersatz religion for the secular. Hence more undistracted devotion to political topics both local and national.

And to think, all this sprang from SoapBlox’s latest tour into the dark side of “right-wing” blogs. Memo to SoapBlox’s ubikkibu: You give me too much credit for creating the MaddenMess Web site – send me an email and I’ll forward you the message that advertised the release of this new site. And thanks for the publicity!

While we’re on corrections, here are a couple more for ubikkibu – 1. I am a former president of the Jeffco Young Republicans. and 2. I am a member of the current class of the Leadership Program of the Rockies, not the 2005 class. I’m sure old and misleading info lurking out there on the ‘Net was the source for the mistakes, but thought I’d clear it up anyway.

And calling the Independence Institute “conservative” needs a lot of explanation and elaboration … a think tank that offers “free market solutions” would be better. But, hey, it’s all part of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (VRWC), isn’t it? Reminds me I need to get my VRWC Membership card updated for 2006-2007….

(Memo to Colorado’s wealthy conservatives: Do you see the attention my personal Web site gets? Imagine what this independent writer could do with a well-funded group venture….)