Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

Andrew Breitbart of Breitbart.com and Breitbart.tv has worked for both Matt Drudge and Arianna Huffington, the biggest of the best New Media, Right and Left, respectively, so he's got a rather unique perspective on things. In part one of a fascinating three-part interview published by the Washington Times, Breitbart explains the differences in how conservatives and liberals use the New Media in politics...

Q: Let's talk a little about politics. We recently had a panel where we brought in a lot of bloggers and other online people, and we talked about the perception that the Left has gotten more mileage out of the blogosphere, especially in the 2006 cycle. You got any take on that?

A: I think that's kind of conventional wisdom-y. The Left has recently figured out its place on the Internet. And it's less in reporting facts the mainstream media is ignoring -- because there is a simpatico sensibility between the left-wing blogosphere and the mainstream media, in terms of political hopes and aspirations.

The Right on the Internet is about an alternative stream of content and an alternative stream of ideas that comes to different situations and different stories from a completely different philosophical point of view. So there's a lot of original content that has opened up a lot of people's eyes who wouldn't see these ideas, but for the Internet and the freedom that exists out there to circumvent the traditional media and the traditional media biases.

The Left is not succeeding because it's creating more Left-friendly material, it is succeeding because it's mimicking the real-world traits that served the Left well in the '60s, and that's activism. It's not saying, "Here's an article and this is going to tell you new information, and give you a different vantage." No, this is, how to get a hundred people to vote who otherwise wouldn't be voting -- how to get people motivated. It's more of a tool to apply to rules of activism to the Internet.

It's sort of the [Joe] Trippi model. How to get people to donate money, and how to feel like they're involved. ... When you hear about the successes online of the Left, it's usually how one person was able to motivate [the 2006 Democratic primary campaign] to get Joe Lieberman out of office. It's isolating the act, and getting people to act on that. It's activism.

The Right, to me, online has been more about having a venue in which these ideas that you'd never find in the New York Times or The Washington Post can find their way online. How conservatives consume that is their own private thing.

Q: So it's not telling people, "Here, let's go to this meeting, let's sign this petition." It's more about, "Look, here's something you don't know."

A: It's about the constant stream. It's about connecting people out there who've not felt served by the traditional media's organization and ideological constraints.

That's not to say that the Right doesn't have its activist tendencies on the Internet, but that's not the primary value of the Internet to the Right. The primary value of the Internet to the center-right is, here are ideas that, 10 or 15 years ago, you had to either subscribe to National Review or the Weekly Standard or to Commentary or to The Washington Times, to get an alternative. But you really had to actively pursue that stuff. Now, there are so many right-of-center venues.

Read all three parts of the Washington Times interview with Breitbart here: 

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3