(A crosspost from eyeon08.com)

An important discussion is emerging on the role of social conservatives in the righty-blogosphere. Joe Carter, who organized the blogger row at FRC's Values Voters summit, had this to say about the experience:

Anyone who wonders why the audience for the right-side of the blogosphere is stagnant at an estimated 200,000 readers should look at the supply and demand curve. The right side of the blogosphere continuously focuses on secondary issues and ignores the primary concerns of American conservatives.

I talked to the bloggers on the panel, many of whom are the same bloggers I read daily and interact with here in DC. Then I talked to the people from the audience, most of whom are not political junkies. The differences in the discussions was eye-opening. The top four issues that voters said were important to them are "life" (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, embryo destructive research, etc.), marriage, tax cuts, and permanent tax relief for families. Aside from tax cuts, these issues are rarely talked about by the bloggers on the Right. Three out of four issues are ignored--and this is just the top of the list.

The stark contrast between the heartland conservatives and the DC-centric bloggers became apparent in the panel discussion I moderated on Political Blogging. Although most of the panel members could be classified as moderately social conservative, few of them focus primarily on social conservative issues.

Several things strike me here. First, and in my own experience, I started blogging to impact politics, not discuss the issues of the day. The metric that I have used in doing that has not been "readers" it has been the more amorphous concept of "quality readers". And I am quite pleased with my results. In the same way, Redstate has an objective: to discuss the right side of Capitol Hill. Let's be clear. These are elite projects. They try to move members of Congress and the media.

[Continue reading after the jump...)