I think this has to do with the psychology of what makes one choose to be liberal and what makes one choose to be conservative.

While there can be some rigid left-wing ideologues and some thoughtful and tolerant conservatives,  generally speaking, conservatives prefer order and uniformity, liberals prefer diversity and openmindedness.

Therefore, right-wing blogs become an echo chamber. The purpose behind the blog is to rally behind a central idea, make it your own, be part of the group, and promote it. Right-wing blogs, like right-wing radio, and other forms of  right-wing media are ways for the masses to get the message. In return for their loyalty and acceptance of the message, the masses feel like they are part of a group, a team, a family, even. (Thus the emphasis on "family values" by those who seem to have little regard for them.)

On the other hand, left-wing blogs become a shouting match between the members. A while back, I made a post highly critical of what Chris had written. It came off harsher than I intended and he called me an asshole for it. Yet I didn't get banned (thank you). Discussion and debate, even heated debate, is what keeps left-wing blogs going, and I think we're stronger for it.

All and all, it should come as no surprise that right-wing and left-wing blogs behave differently.

That's why the Repugs have been so successful online. I'm a homeschooling mom who happens to be an atheist and a progressive libertarian (go check ChrisNolan.com for a cogent definition) --so I don't fall into the category of homeschoolers described in the paper mentioned in the blog.

And that's why, when I went looking online for information about homeschooling, I found more information that was religious than secular --which I found quite shocking given that most people I met and spoke to about homeschooling were the crunchy granola types --not one was homeschooling for religious reasons. But on the net, it sure looks like it.

Progressives have to stop thinking about repugs as backward hill-billies because, when it comes to the politics of technology --and the technology of politics-- it's the so called liberals/progressives and Democrats who are the troglodytes.

Repugs look at blogs, more so than static sites, as real estate. Linking to one another creates a tightly knit community and lowers the barrier for locking sites in with their message. It works brilliantly for framing attacks and going for the kill.

Look at how from Drudge and the Freeper site information is passed down at lighting speed into the red blogosphere. Once you have 10-15 sites hitting the same topic, Google does it's job. And if those 10-15 sites happen to be repugblogs, then they've won.

This is not rocket science. This is the law of links and Google ranking. That blue bloggers don't get it begs the question, why are they doing this in the first place. Do get a book deal and then bail? If this is really a movement, then we have to think tactically. How do you do so?

-- encourage building not just blogs but community blogs with platforms like Drupal, CivicSpace or Scoop. There is great potential in those MySQL databases.

-- Link and link generously. If possible, run an RSS aggregator on your site and invite people to add their feeds; making it easy for people to comment on other networked blogger's posts.

-- use the "nofollow" tag only sparingly; maybe for the sites you're fisking

-- METAs & FOAF still work. Use it.

-- Categories are a good thing. Use them widely. Tag, tag and tag some more. And if possible, ecourage the use of folksonomies in your blogs, diaries and comments. And allow live links on your comments as well.

-- Then link, quote and link some more.

It's not rocket science. It's just good blog networking.

I think it was Chris Bowers who wrote last year a post about blogs with stickiness. My blog does not have stickiness because it's more like a node --people find me before they find specific posts at MyDD, DailyKos, etc. I don't get the daily hundreds of thousands Kos gets but my blog (I'm in the 10-15K, mostly through RSS), but like 50-100 mid-level blogs like mine, I feed blogs like DailyKos and this here site. To not give back linklove or even acknowledge our contributions is a crime.

Which is why, after Kevin Drum posted a few weeks ago, "where are the women bloggers" question that pops-up every month or so, I've decided to take down from my blogroll "the big blogs". I'll still quote and will still link back to posts, but blogroll? Nope. There are more deserving, cluefull people out there.

I mean, if a top progressive male blogger can't name 5 progressive women bloggers, is this really a movement or is it just a clique of "the same old boys club" quoting each other?

Sorry I'm so irritable but it just needs to be said because it's akin to this recent post by Kos

Independent Publishers
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/8/114050/1607

It's the same hypocrisy, different media.

This is an excellent point you make and another reason why not taking into account the smaller blogs is doing them a disservice.

These blogrolls serve as a virtual ad revenue portal for those included. Those left out, are screwed. So what should be done? You could support the progressive netroots movement by treating the network of blogs as potential ad real estate.

I want to see progressive blogs treat each other as affiliates of the same political network. This way, it might be easier to negotiate ads across affiliates as opposed to having progressive bloggers fighting against each other for the same ad money.

That's just one tactical issue to look into for a better network.

Leaving One's Comfort Zone
http://afronetizen.blogs.com/afronetizen/2005/01/leaving_ones_co.html

I'm here in NYC, in Manhattan nonetheless, and I had no idea this was happening. If organizers just new about State Writes [ http://www.reachm.com/amstreet/states-writes.htm ], and followed the leads by state, they'd have no excuse not to invite people from the state they're running these events.

This is why metablogging or meta-blogrolling is way more important for sites like MyDD to practice than the regular blogrolls they have at the moment.