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Bandwidth EnvyCan the right create its own netroots?

By Christopher BeamPosted Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009, at 4:21 PM ET

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If you don't believe him, look at the fuss over Obama's birth certificate. The more Obama's detractors shouted, the sillier they looked. Part of the problem, says Frum, is the "deep asymmetry of American political culture. … Say someone on the left calls for the assassination of George W. Bush—he gets a book contract from Farrar, Straus and Giroux." (For the record, it was Knopf.) "Now suppose someone calls for the assassination of Barack Obama. It's Dallas, 1963, and we're all guilty." As a result, conservative sites are terrified of what their commenters might say. (Neither NRO nor the Weekly Standard has comment sections.) "We are held more responsible for our lunatics than the left is held for their lunatics."

The solution, Frum says, is to use a scalpel, not a bullhorn: "What is required is not just to point and shriek outrage, but close study, close reporting, close monitoring of what the Obama administration is up to." That could be sifting a budget for pork, criticizing the raising of CAFE standards, or picking apart the rationale behind closing Guantanamo.

Another reason the right can't simply imitate the left is there's no "unifying grievance" like the Iraq war—at least not yet. For one thing, Obama hasn't done anything particularly controversial. "There's no fuel in the stove yet," says Joe Trippi, who was Howard Dean's media guru in 2004. Recall it took years for the left to rack up enough beef—Clinton's impeachment, the 2000 recount, the Iraq war—to forge a coalition. "The right can build all the tools it wants, but without a narrative and a rallying point for action, it will be for naught," wrote Patrick Ruffini in his mission statement for the Next Right. The stimulus package offers the right a compelling target. But it has yet to be voted on.

Other elements have to align, too: The "rightroots" will need a Howard Dean—someone to harness their energy in the political realm. The name that came up most in conversation was Sarah Palin. McCain's online donations exploded when he introduced her in August, and she still boasts a passionate online following. The right also has to match the left's extreme locality—i.e., get people jazzed about small races as much as big ones. To that end, the revamped Slatecard will include a recommendations feature not unlike Netflix's or Amazon's. If you liked this Senate candidate, you'll love this candidate for Spokane city comptroller! And last, they need their own news. Talking Points Memo has reinvented muckraking from the left. The right needs it own investigative shop. If Tucker Carlson's site doesn't fill the void, someone else should.

The "rightroots" could still be a long way off. For one thing, Obama simply isn't Bush. "I think there's a lot of passion in the country to throw partisanship out the window," says Trippi. That fact "could be a decelerator." Plus, by pledging to create the "most transparent administration ever," Obama makes the muckrakers' jobs easier—and harder. In his first week, Obama fired off a memo to agency heads urging openness and a directive to loosen FOIA standards. Sure, people will find information that's embarrassing to the administration. But if the administration wasn't trying to hide it, the exposés won't have the same outrage factor.

There's also a lurking downside to all this connectedness, which is that the Internet could, in the words of one Republican official, "do more harm than good." "There seems to be a major fracture developing between ultra-conservatives" and moderate libertarians in the party, he explained. If one group—say, the Christian right—decided to mobilize online and hold the party hostage, they could very well splinter the GOP.

In other words, the Web isn't just a force for unity; it's a force for division, too. This much was evident on the Democratic side during the campaign, when Obama had to fight back an online rebellion over his stance on retroactive immunity for telecom companies. But in the end, Democrats were so desperate for victory that they unified. It may take years for that sense of desperation to seep into the GOP.

Whatever happens, it has to occur organically, says Henke. That's not easy for Republicans, who are used to top-down organization. It requires ceding control. It also requires listening. But if the party is going to tell a story about the Obama administration, it has to come from the bottom up. "Organic" … "ceding control" … "bottom up." This should be interesting.