Newt's Running

Okay, then.

How many people in America are named Newt?

Right. You got it. I don't even have to write his last name and already one of toughest challenges of any politician is already whipped: name recognition.

One blog to watch has an archives that started last August and has been ticking along with about a dozen posts a month, replete with video links, book promotions and a little blogroll. The hitcounter lists 3500 hits and the TTLB rank is in the forty thousand range, but hey...you gotta start somewhere. Think how much money is not being pissed away all this time.

And the latest post, yesterday, links to a bunch of places telling what Newt thinks about immigration. Don't go looking for any surprises.

So how do you go about finding a blog like that?
Chance. Pure and simple.

I've been watching my downward spiral in the TTLB ranks ever since NZ started tweaking the ecosystem. I'm still not sure of the metrics, but one fact is clear: links are the currency that buys a good place toward the top. Google searches don't count. Traffic is of no consequence. Content is not judged. And there seems to be a heavy tilt favoring the political right.

Having slid from the ten thousands to the fifteen thousands in the ranking system I once again picked a random site from among the nose-bleed reaches of the ecosystem and came upon Fix 4 RSO (# 1139) with a breathtaking 465 inbound links. I guess it's a milblog, but what impressed me most was the sidebar, a Who's Who of links from the political right, organized in groups that run from opposing immigration to getting rid of the Senior Senator from Pensylvania.

[Aside: Checking Wikipedia to verify what state Murtha was from because I didn't remember, I see someone has taken advantage of the open nature of wiki sites to write ugly remarks into the article.

Murtha loves faggot dick, he thinks it's the best shit ever.
He was known for smoking a mean pole, with determination and dedication through out his gay porn career.
He had an odd love for the taste of faggot shit, seriously, he did, i would know. :X
He loved to smoke faggot pole more than anything in the world, because he loves dick because he is gay.

I'm sure the moderators will get it cleaned up pretty soon, but I copy it here to show the nature of the opposition the man has drawn by his outspoken views. These are the voices that so often complain about the moral emptiness and other hateful qualities of the political left. But I digress. Please excuse...]

Fix 4 RSO doesn't get a lot of traffic.

I have been trying to test when my overall traffic would fall off based on inactivity on my part. I noticed that no matter how hard I worked on my posts, I kept a steady state of 12-18 hits per day. That’s OK, but I was losing a ton of sleep - and with a new job that requires travel, well, blogging was getting tough for the return.

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Scanning the sidebar trying to figure out how anyone who doesn't keep up his blog, who only gets a few dozen hits a day, is able to attract hundreds of incoming links, I noticed the Newt blog. Since he was once my Congressman I have kinda kept up with him ever since. I know he's a really smart man and very savvy. He also gets away with saying stuff that other conservatives won't say out loud.

I sometimes think it's because he's smarter than most conservatives but doesn't want to let on. He's like Neal Boortz in that way. Smarter than he acts. For years I have felt there's something about being stupid that appeals to conservatives. It's a Southern thing, you know, but in recent years that's been politically fashionable. Ever since LBJ being a Southern redneck has carried a lot of political glamor. Democrats had the knack for years, but in recent times Republicans have caught on. It's no accident that the Republican party still hammers away at a "Southern strategy."