I'm at CPAC, and the big news just broke that Mitt Romney has dropped out of the race.

In the video below, James Joyner of the conservative blog, Outside the Beltway, discusses how he "scooped" the story thanks to smart tagging of a blog post he wrote yesterday. (The gist is that he titled a blog post, "Mitt Romney Quits Race?" yesterday and thanks his high Google pagerank, that blog post is sending him a lot of traffic.)

There has been a lot of discussion lately over who is winning online - conservatives or liberals? You might as well ask which is better, an apple or an orange?

If I may paint with a wide brush for a moment, conservatives and liberals are different sorts of people. We have different world views. We enjoy different activities. We react differently to the same events. And we engage politically in different ways.

There has been much bemoaning the almighty YearlyKos, which has been called a progressive movement (except that apparently the only movement this year was around the breakfast buffet). Approximately 1,500 lost and lonely wandered into the event, but this number wouldn't fill an afternoon panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held each year in Washington. Over 5,000 conservative activists fill CPAC not only to hear great speakers and get huge stacks of books autographed but also to attend workshops -- where they learn new ways to take action.

Herein lies the difference.

Liberals (still using the wide brush here) tend to be inherently good at making noise, sometimes false noise, then repeating it over and over with a straight face as if that noise means something. Conservatives on the other hand generally look through the hype and find ways to get a job done.

Liberals make a lot of noise, they organize cool rallies with witty signs, then they... get nothing done (see Howard Dean's oft-lauded campaign). The Internet, especially via blogs, is perfectly suited for this disposition. Conservatives look to a challenge and go about conquering it. No committees. No rallies. Just results.

In 2004, MoveOn.org created a lot of noise. They lost. In 2004, independent bloggers took action and found out the truth about Dan Rather's falsified documents. They won.

A separate conference like YearlyKos is necessary to create more noise and excite liberals online. Integrating online panels and workshops at a conference like CPAC is necessary to create action and enable conservatives online.

Why has the Drudge Report been such a popular website over the years? It's just the facts, the latest news, and we're back about our day. Blogging for conservatives is integrated, part of our lives and a vehicle to take action.

As a consultant, I often advise clients to take an integrated approach to their communications. While bright shiny objects like Facebook and blogging may look like fun, using them has to be integrated with a strategic approach to truly make an impact. In this context, it’s not hard to see how YearlyKos is a bright shiny object, one that might even intimidate conservatives. CPAC on the other hand is informative, real, and actionable. It is integrated.

As we measure the success of conservatives online, it will look a lot different than how liberals measure success. Theirs will be measured in the number of activists recruited, videos downloaded, or "members" of certain sites. It will, in effect, be a measure of noise. Conservatives must look for ways to enable and measure action. Patrick Ruffini’s recent creation, RightRoots.com, is a prime example of a successful online conservative best practice. The same can be said for Eric Cantor’s Solutions Factory. Either by contributing money or contributing ideas, these sites encourage conservatives to take action.

We will continue to hear how liberals are winning online. Don’t believe it. It's all a bunch of noise. Instead, take action. We eConservatives still have a lot of work to do, but we are doing a better job than you may think.