RedState.com, a grassroots conservative community blog, is the favorite conservative blog of politicians and their staffers on Capitol Hill.
In a survey taken from January to March of 2006, RedState tied for sixth place with ABC's The Note as a favorite blog of Capitol Hill -- beating out the other two conservative blogs on the list -- NRO's The Cornor and Instapundit. The five blogs that placed before RedState all swing deliberately to the left -- 5) Hotline On Call, 4) The Huffington Post, 3) Talking Points Memo, 2) Wonkette and 1) Daily Kos -- with the exception of the Drudge Report, which tied for fourth the Post but isn't widely considered to be a blog.
The survey, released through the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University, is the
senior honors thesis of T. Neil Sroka. Not only did Sroka ask those working on Capitol Hill what their favorite blogs were, he also gathered a tally of who it is that is actually reading blogs.
Danny Glover of the Beltway Blogroll
breaks the study down nicely:
Not surprisingly, only 11.5 percent of actual lawmakers are blog readers, while 93.6 percent of their senior flacks keep one eye on the blogosphere. The rest of the numbers: 34.6 percent of junior communications staffers, 51.3 percent of senior legislative assistants, and 47.4 percent of junior legislative assistants.
RedState, a HUMAN EVENTS sister company, was founded in 2004 and has played a major role in the conservative grassroots network ever since. Erick Erickson, managing editor of RedState, said RedState owes its success to its loyal participants.
"RedState has set itself apart from other right-of-center blogs by having a dynamic community of readers who participate," he told HUMAN EVENTS. "We have active readers and contributors and we're always willing to help people on the Hill get out their message."
According to Erickson, the constant buzz on the site keeps readers coming back for more.
"Loyal readers come through interaction and the interaction at RedState becomes pretty addictive over time," he said. "People find themselves there constantly. In the future, I hope we can build on that even more, provide more outlets for site users, and help the GOP fight the Democrats more efficiently and proactively."
