Well, a lot has happened since the last time I posted here. I joined John McCain’s campaign. I left John McCain’s campaign. I joined my friend Jon Henke at New Media Strategies, a great New Media PR firm.
Jon and I will be joining Patrick Ruffini on a new project, The Next Right. I think that all of us have slightly different views of the project. But here’s where I am coming from.
My sense is that our politics, the conservative movement, and the Republican Party is at a transitional point. Mike Huckabee’s campaign was basically correct that the Reagan coalition was over. Patrick had noticed that Bush had run in 2000 on a somewhat different agenda than Reagan’s, so this is not that surprising a statement … unless you are operating in the intellectually atrophied confines of the Beltway. Conservative interest groups have become profoundly transactional and trivial in scope. In any case, the Republican Party needs to change. Some of these demands are generational. Some of it is the catastrophe of the old business model. Some of it is demographic, although Barack Obama and his version of liberalism seem determined to give us an assist in the fall.
The upshot is that Patrick, Jon, and I will be exploring these ideas and where we go from here. I think that we have somewhat different views of what exactly this means. There will be some focus on technology. Some of this is inevitable because of who we are and what we do. Some of this is because when you organize a new movement, you use the tools that you have. The urban machines did it with the precinct structure. We did it with direct mail. And the RNC has found efficiencies in the GOTV process that are hard to comprehend.
I hope that you join us at The Next Right as we work out some of the questions and hopefully shape the next Republican majority. I also have some other political projects that are in the ideas stage. Expect to hear more about these.
I will also continue blogging at Redstate for more activist-oriented political things and a variety of things of personal interest at sorendayton.com, where this is crossposted. Please read them all and stay in touch!
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The Next Right | MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy · May 8, 2008 at 7:00 AM
[…] . The Next Right is a new project started by Patrick Ruffini, Jon Henke, and Soren Dayton, designed to foster political activism using technology like blogs and other Web 2.0 structures. Patrick Ruffini introduces it here: If you’re looking for pure-play opinion and link bait on sundry topics from Ann Coulter to Jimmy Carter/Hamas, you won’t find it here. What you will find is in-depth (often unabashedly technical) writing about the election, the polls, the strategy, and the issues. Our analysis will track truth and stay true to the numbers. But it will self-consciously serve a greater purpose — educating YOU to be your own political strategist and start doing something — whether that’s blogging about your local Congressional race or Democratic corruption in your state, organizing fundraising drives, and maybe even managing races or running for office yourself. Only a revival of civic engagement at the grassroots level will create a conservative future we want: one that is pork-free and robust in the defense of our country and its values. We can’t call a switchboard and wait for Washington to fix the mess. We have to do it ourselves, from the ground up, in every state. […] We don’t think this alone will solve the activism gap. Anyone who tells you that they alone have the answer is fooling you. This is not “the Daily Kos of the right.” What we’re hoping to do is create momentum and an intellectual framework for action — because action ultimately starts with narratives and ideas. We want grassroots conservatives and libertarians to start believing that they can make a difference again — a sense all too many have lost. Only you – and not some well-funded 527 — can bring the movement into the future. Only when grassroots conservative have a direct stake in the future of the party are we effective. The Next Right is about creating a vision for a 21st century Republican Party and conservative movement. […]
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