This has been a tough week, with, first Dennis Kucinich and next John Edwards dropping out of the presidential race-- generally, the two candidates considered, in the order I listed them, the most progresssive. That leaves two Democratic candidates who are more centrist. I know some of our readers will be unhappy with the remaining choices. Some will go green, some will shift their hopes to Ron Paul, some will hope for a third party candidate entry like Bloomberg, Nader, or perhaps even Paul/Kucinich. (I'm just recapitulating what has been written on the site in articles, diaries and comments.
My hope is that Edwards and Kucinich continue to play the role they've taken on, parrallell to their presidential primary campaigns-- as leaders, visionaries and spokesmen for the progressive movement.
Here at OpEdNEws, we hope they will continue to communicate their vision and message and, hopefully, continue their creative, passionate activism.
In a way, there is a feeling of writing an obituary here, because the truly progressive candidates are now, really, finally out of the picture. To quote Mika Brzezinsky, "it is now a two man race-- one man one woman."
It is impossible to discuss the two candidates without mentioning the two extraordinary women in their lives, or should I say Elizabethss-- Elizabeth Kucinich and Elizabeth Edwards. My prayers go to Elizabeth Edwards-- that she may continue with the energy and passion that she has demonstrated in the primaries-- and to Elizabeth Kucinich, that she continue to be the shining activist and spokesperson for the left that she has shown herself to be.
Now, we have two democratic candidates and four republican candidates to choose from (OpEdNEws is a non-profit, therefor non-partisan site.) Among those, three are actually considered by our readers-- Clinton, Obama and Paul. Though we are a non-partisan site, we are a progressive site. We will be exploring how to maintain non-partisan status while pursuing our progressive vision. One thing we will not be able to do is fundraising for candidates. We WILL continue to be a forum for op-eds, but probably, we will not be headlining advocacy articles. We wil lean towards headlining articles that include news and articles that discuss issues, behaviors and ideas.
In terms of local politics, we are very interested in hearing from all candidates-- municipal, state, federal, from all policies. We'd love to hear from Mitt Romney and would gladly run an article by him. What, are you crazy? You may think, aghast. But remember, we ARE non-partisan, and we do have comments after our articles.
I believe that including right wing op-eds, not too many, but smart, civil ones, enable our progressive readers to have talking points and ideas to rebut, to whet and sharpen their knives on. Also, I hear from right wing readers who read our site's articles and agree with some of them. And they keep coming back because we are open to a wider range of ideas.
At the Senate Democratic Progressive Media Summit I attended on monday, I brought printout s of some charts, from Alexa.com, which show, clearly, that opednews.com has higher traffic rankings than all but about four progressive websites (and we're passing and catching up with two of them, quickly.) The senate staffers asked what I thought was the reason our traffic has been growing. I replied that there were four primary reasons--
1) The "we the people" approach to our content-- that anyone who can write well and present good, new ideas and analysis can write for us. We end up with great writing, a great community and great articles.
2) Our openness to the widest range of ideas and issues
3) our proprietary website software makes the site very sticky, so people can more easily find articles by writers, by tag/subject by locale.
4) We are not just a political site. We accept articles on any subject a daily newspaper or weekly news magazine would.
Please use this diary to post your thoughts on where the presidential race, where OpEdNews, where Kucinich and Edwards should be going. And absolutely, use it to discuss where you think the race will be going now that it's down to Five candidates.
Personally, I can't wait to see polls matching up Obama and Hillary against the remaining Republican Candidates. Those polls could make a huge difference for super tuesday.
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In the months ahead, the news from the mainstream media will be the same as always-- processed, pureed and filtered by pundits paid by GE, Disney, Fox, etc. OpEdNEws will be in the ring, swinging, fighting to bring the light that just doesn't shine from those venues.
And keep in mind, OpEdNEws is not only a media site, it's a tool for activists. We'll be bringing out more new technology this year, starting with events and calendars, that you and your organizations will be able to use. Some of you will actually use, as many already do, your member page as your website. We'll be adding many more features which will make this work even better for you. Others will use the site to get your message out, to let people know about and sign up for events... to do polling (coming soon) and a lot more.
We're going to need your support. We're wrapping up a month, that last year, was our worst, for fundraising, and the past four or five days, we've seen hardly any donations-- less than ten-- so, if you can, please, before the end of the month, send in something to so we can kick off the year with a strong, vibrant, confident start.
Looking forward to a wild ride, together,
Rob Kall
PS I want to make sure you saw the two articles I ran yesterday.
Conyers Tells Rob Kall: Impeachment Not Off the Table; A You Tube Video make sure you watch the video. It was a pretty intense toe to toe conversation. I know I enjoyed it and I think Conyers did too. There's a moment, when he reminds me who in congress has more experience with impeachment than anyone else, when he seems quite amused. Make sure to read the commentary AFTER the script, and note that I added to it, if you commented on the article, criticizing Conyers. You'll want to read what I've written. I promise to follow up on this conversation, with Conyers, Kucinich and others.
OpEdNews Report on Senate Dem Progressive Media Summit By Rob Kall
Harry Reid Tells Progressive Media, "but for you, this country would be in much worse shape than it is today." Now, OEN readers and writers, commenters and diary bloggers, keep in mind that there only between 12 and 24 writers there-- journalists and bloggers. The rest of the people were in talk radio and the business side of the progressive media. Harry was talking to us. We're doing something very special that is making the US and the world better. So keep it up, and make sure that every day, you stretch a little further, do a little more than you ever thought you could do before. Before you know it, it will become a habit.
