I suspect it is more because whereas the liberals/left/DLC are divided on strategy, the right is divided by idealogical differences- are we going to be small government libertarian, theocon, paleocon, moderate main street, Wall Street, xenophobic, - what are we going to be? It was easier to keep all the faultlines out of view when they all thought they had a stake in the power that they had- now that they are off the wheels, they are doing what the Democrats did. Questioning which is the right pathway, and as a result each candidate becomes a lense- if my guess is right- to judge the next direction for conservatism.

Hmmm... I'd agree somewhat with blogometer on this, but maybe not to that extent.   I'm still seeing a distressing trend even on lefty blogs to compete with other candidates by tearing them down, rather than trying to argue why one's own candidate is better.

That being said... the more I think about it, the more I would agree that the overall trend has been good on our side.  Lots more attempts to restrain unnecessary negativity.

I think it might just be that we're feeling pretty pumped and optimistic right now, while a lot on the right are feeling incredibly frustrated by the midterms and Bush.  And that frustration is more likely to channel itself into negativity, acting out, etc.

Personally, I hope we can keep up the good trend on the left.  I love competition, but for once, I'd love to make it "why my guy is even better" rather than "why my guy is the least worst and your guy is the spawn of Satan."

Let's face it.  There's a lot more substantive discussions that can focuse elsewhere than the presidential race.  So far, the presidential discussions, while sometimes quite impassioned, have largely been fairly vacuous.  This makes them standard fare for the wingnut-o-sphere.  But for usins, not so much.

I care about progressives taking more seats in Congress in 08. I've already picked my presidential candidate, a progressive of experience and good judgement. No one else comes close to his qualifications. Unless someone similar appears - a governor perhaps - he is the man I'd work for, no one else, and if he isn't nominated, then I'll spend my time and energy on the House and Senate progressives.

I'm not interest in "buzz." George Bush had lots of buzz. American voters made a Huge error in judgement - twice. They were in thrall to appearance and entertainment values, not interested in finding out what a president is actually  in charge of and who would be good at  doing that job. No, people talked about whatever the entertainment media talked about and not about Bush the business failure, the student failure, the drunk, the convicted, the Vietnam avoider.

I read bloggers here and elsewhere who are still charmed by appearance and winning, when it's early enough yet to be reading resumes.

That's why we're progressives and they're cavemen.

If, "the right-wing blogosphere is merely a forum for already existing conservative movement institutions", then I would say the right wing blog crankiness about '08 could be for two reasons.

First off, they like talking points, they like attacking in force, they like ganging up and the field is too dispersed now to allow for that.
Much of the discussion of GOP candidates is driven by the MSM picking their ponies for their horse race. This isn't the way that the right likes it, and the media discussion of McCain and Giulliani has got to anger them. Conservative movement institutions are not in control of the GOP candidate selection process right now.

Secondly, they are still stuck on supporting Bush. Some of the media is criticizing Bush now, or at least passing on information about how unpopular he is. After 6 years of right-wing blogs supporting him and of trying to portray his incompetence and anti-democratic rule as something heroic, turning their minds towards supporting someone else will be very difficult for them. It's too early for them to know whom they should support, and they don't know how to phrase the messages about '08. They are stuck on '04 just as Bush is.

I think Matt makes a good point on the new organization of progressives versus merely giving an existing group a forum for conversation in the case of the Conservatives, but I think it goes a bit deeper.  

My two cents on why the Rigthy blogs are already going off on 08', is pretty simple; they got beat in november, bad. Now they are looking to find a Candidate who will heal the ever increasing cracks in their electoral coalition of Goldwater Conservatives, Christianists and Defense Hawks. They've got nothing positive to build on in '08 so there is significant dissent on what model to proceed with, whereas across the asile we've already got a lot more momentum to build on.

One can't glance at RedState with out reading some hit piece on a GOP WH '08 candidate.

Liberal:  I think my plan is good because...
Conservative:  Typical Liberal Pinko commie America Hater...

I don't know if it's because of ideology, personality, or institutes, but it's just something that I've noticed.

This is why someone like Ann Coulter freaks out when the 9/11 widows speak up.  She instantly wants to start tearing them down, but can't and freaks out about it.  Actually arguing the merits of policy for some reason didn't even enter her mind.

They lost and are not satisfied with their contenders. They are intent on winning in '08 whereas progressives have battle fatigue.

Sonme very good comments here which all point to the fact that there are several reasons:

1) 06 hangover:  Dems are more positive now and Reps are negative due to their losses.  They're still smarting and they are angry.  The scapegoating process is still happening but it's now shifted into looking at 08.

2) Dems tend to argue policies and Reps, people.  That's a big generalization but it's been particularly true with the Bush administration and their priority on party unity.  To their downfall.

3) Partly as a result of #1 above, the Reps want to get 06 behind them and, partly as a result of #2, they are really focusing on people rather than positions.  Given the reality that the Bushies don't believe in government and governamental programs, why focus on policies?  It's all about the people and that's where their critical eye naturally lands.

4) And since it is about people not policies, with the Reps losing the legislative branch of governmental control their thoughts don't immediately go to recapturing it.  Rather they want to keep control of the "guy in charge" who can rewrite legislation as he sees fit (their view).  So they have even more invested in the executive branch and the presidency than the Dems do.  It's all top down to them.

God I hope we clean their clocks in 08.

If you accept this premise and you really think that the progressive blogosphere hasn't trashed any of the 2008 contenders, try writing something like

"I think John Kerry should be our nominee again next time."

I'm not necessarily saying he should be (although, truth be told, I have given him money since 2004)--my preferences run to Gore, Obama and Edwards first.  But there are any number of circumstances in which I could see Kerry becoming the nominee again, and I'd hate to see the vitriol spewed at him here and at dailykos be used by the right-wing spin machine against us.

Oppose him all you want, but let's not supply Karl Rove with quotes for his next 60-second ad on behalf of John McCain.

Bush's legacy for the right is the imperial Presidency.  He has debased the currency of the other two branches of government and tried to usurp all power unto himself.  It's not surprising then, that the righty blogs consider the Presidency the real prize.

Add to that an humiliating defeat in 2006 and a realization that winning back Congress will be a long, hard slog, and you can almost understand their narrow focus.  If the President can trample Congress, then it's easier to focus on keeping one office than winning back dozens of them.  And if that imperial President will recast the entire goverment in his image, the ideology of that autocrat becomes an all-encompassing issue.

Are the lefty blogs really reticent?  For a short period, there was a blog-burst of anti-Obama stuff.  If you want to get a sense of the "secularists" that some people complain about, take a look at some of the Daily Kos diarists and their past comments and diaries and you'll notice that some of them show a pattern of being creeped out by Christianity and by religion in general.

If Joe Biden was polling higher, he'd have a lot of hitjobs laid out on him.  If Dennis Kucinich had a credible chance of winning, you'd see more talk of how he is a freaky, nutty elf.

On the left, there's a sense that we know who the candidates are and where they stand relative to each other.  On the right, they don't have that certainty, and when you have differing opinions floundering in a sea of despair, you have ideological pitbulls at each others' throats.  

We've also seen a lot of these candidates before.  Do we really have anything to add to Edwards and Kerry that we didn't know about them in 2004, except that they didn't seem to be fighters when it came to crunch time? Has Wesley Clark done anything to make you think more or less of him after two years?  With years of speculating about Hillary Clinton, haven't we all formed an opinion about her?  If Evan Bayh had announced that he were running instead of not running, wouldn't we have been subjected to more anti-DLC screeds? (And to be fair, they would contain a lot of justifiable discontent.)  If Bill Richardson gets traction in the poll, I expect another round of contentious blog posting similar to what we went through with Obama-rama.

Plus, the left is still concerned with what the Democrats should do in Congress. (see the debate over impeachment.)  Once we get a sense of where Pelosi and Reid are taking this country, we can devote more time to looking at candidates.

The down ballot issue may be due to the right assuming that 2006 was a freak year and they've got 60 obvious targets next year, whereas many Democrats believe it was a re-alignment election and want to strengthen congressional minorities.

Alternatively, it could stem from the more top-down model of the righty blogs, which makes it more difficult for them to intervene in local matters.

Sometimes the simplest explanation is the best:

Their candidates suck.

I'm sorta serious here. They have a really bad field of candidates, very unattractive, I think, especially to the activists.

But I think the big reason is that the recriminations over '06 are spilling over into Presidential preferences like '02 spilled over into our discussions of the field (and gave a huge boost to Dean).

I think there are a lots of areas that show the superiority of liberal blogs over conservative ones, but I don't think this is one of them, really.

I really think that's the secret.  I see a lot of debates, for instance, about what Pelosi & Co. should do in the 101st hour of the new Congress.

But the rightwing netroots have little investment in what the new Congress actually does.  Their main reaction seems to be to try to build up Pelosi into some hideous abomination, without ever saying why.  But they realize there's no big conservative principle to go to the mats for here.

It's not like defeating a minimum wage hike is the hill the GOP wants to die on.  Nor is there some big principle in defending corporate advantages with respect to the Medicare prescription drug benefit or student loans.  They can't exactly say that holding hearings is somehow evil.  They've got nothin'.  

It's exactly the opposite of the lefty netroots' situation in early 2005, where we were fighting what felt like a goal-line stand to save Social Security.  We were all totally invested in that fight.  What fight in 2007 can similarly arouse the righty netroots?  There isn't one.

So they've moved on already; for them, it's already all but 2008.  Fine with me.  The more that the wingnuts are focused on 2008, the more we can get done in 2007.  And the more we get done in 2007, the better the 2008 terrain will be for the Dem nominee, regardless of who he or she may be.

We need an every county policy for 07 and 08.  To do this we need a way of getting relatively small amounts of money (say $1000) for every candidate for every candidate for state office.  Remember reapportionment.

They're left with McC as the mainstream conservative candidate, and that's quite an oxymoron.

We have a bunch of potential kickass candidates and a netroots that knows its own strength. The GOP, on the other hand, has a bunch of crap for prospects, and has a blogosphere full of impotent shills staring down the barrel of a decade in the minority, so they're kicking and screaming their heads off.

Restraint is a sign of maturity. They have none.