All in all, I'm very happy with what we've accomplished over the past 4 years. In 2005, I feel like we got the blog up and running, then pitched in to help defeat Jerry Kilgore and "Raise Kaine" to the governor's mansion. We also tried our best to help elect Leslie Byrne as LG, Creigh Deeds as AG, and progressives like Greg Werkheiser and David Englin to the House of Delegates. I remember people calling and emailing to congratulate me after the 2005 election, and not feeling totally happy because we had lost many of the races I really cared about winning (particularly Werkheiser vs. Albo). Obviously, we still had a lot of work to do.
In 2006, I feel like this blog definitely took major steps forward, both technologically in the move from WordPress to Soapblox, and also politically as we became "Draft James Webb" central. Josh and I were also proud to serve on the Webb campaign, as grassroots and netroots coordinators, respectively. Best of all, with the help of Webb's 10,000-strong "rag-tag army," we won a huge upset victory over George Allen and, in the process, helped take back the U.S. Senate for the Democratic Party. Also in 2006, we fought hard for Democratic congressional candidates like Andy Hurst, Phil Kellam and Judy Feder. And once again, victory was mingled with defeat, as all three of those candidates lost their elections.
In 2007, after some thought and deliberation, we decided to continue the blog, focusing on Virginia General Assembly elections. Ben and I started a Blog Talk Radio show, even conducted several live debates between Democratic candidates. Mainly, we focused on helping take back the State Senate and pick up as many seats in the House of Delegates as possible. Overall, I think we did well, although I continue to believe that with better messaging from the top down, and with a lot more involvement from the bottom up in these local elections, we could have won more seats than we did. I particularly wish that we could have defeated Ken Cuccinelli, who is now a threat to become Virginia's next Attorney General. Needless to say, that would not be a positive development for our Commonwealth.
Finally, this year we essentially became "Obama Central," doing whatever we could to help Obama win the Virginia primary and then to become the first Democrat since LBJ to carry Virginia for President. We also worked hard to help elect Democrats to Congress. I'm particularly proud of the work we did for Tom Perriello, Glenn Nye and Judy Feder, and it looks like Democrats won at least 1 if not 2 of those races. Of course, I'm really bummed about the results in the 10th, and I'm not sure exactly what happened, but in politics you win some and you lose some I guess...
So, with that very brief and highly condensed history of this blog, the question is, now what? Originally, Eric and I had thought of helping elect Tim Kaine, and maybe if that was successful we could continue into 2006 and beyond. But we really weren't thinking too long term. The fact is, most blogs don't make it, and we had no idea if our blog would ever be read by anyone, let alone make a bit of difference.
Today, RK (the name changed because of our profound policy disagreements with Tim Kaine on energy, environment, corporate influence, progressive taxation, the Metro to Dulles project, and other issues) is a well-read blog, with more than 190,000 visits last month and nearly 3 million visits to date. I am pleased with that, as well as with the overall quality level. Of course, this takes a great deal of time, energy, dedication and commitment. Fortunately, we have great contributors to this blog, which helps keep it at a quality level that I think we can all be proud of.
Again, though, the question is, where do we go from here? It seems to me that we've accomplished all the goals - and more! - that Eric and I dreamed in our wildest dreams when we started this thing. Is it time to "move on?" Make some significant changes in content, technology, or anything else? Or, now that we can basically declare "mission accomplished," turn to other pursuits and even close up shop?
We haven't made any decisions, and mainly I just wanted to start a conversation with the RK community. I'm very interested to hear what people think about this blog, the Virginia blogosphere (and netroots) in general, and what they think the future should hold. Thanks.