«  
  »

Decision ’08 Turns One

On November 21st, 2004, the political landscape changed forever. With only 127,835 options for online punditry, the public clamored for number 127,836 – and along came Decision ’08. Here is an excerpt from that momentous first post, creatively titled “Welcome to my new blog”:

Howdy, folks, and welcome to my new blog. I’m going to spend the next four years looking at the politicial horizon in what will hopefully be a witty, informative manner. I’m a conservative, so I won’t insult your intelligence by pretending to be unbiased, but I will try to be fair to both sides (whenever it suits me). I’m also going to be covering general issues that I think reflect on the electorate and where I think it will be heading.

So, in the next few weeks, as I flesh this out, look for profiles of promising candidates from both sides and unexpectedly brilliant analysis that will result is mass hilarity and much head-scratching and pondering, I hope.

“Howdy, folks”…with an opening like that, is it any wonder that Decision ’08 soon rose through the ranks to become the trendsetter it now is?

It’s been a great first year. 300,000 + visitors, almost 2,500 posts (that’s a little less than 7 a day, if you’re counting) and, my favorite stat, over 8,200 comments. That means the most to me, because it means somewhere along the line, I’ve managed to engage or entertain a few people, and that’s what it’s really all about. I do this for me, sure, but I do it for you, too, because it’s no fun to talk to myself (and my beagle, cute as she is, makes a lousy conversationalist).

I’ve been given a big boost by some very generous bloggers of every size, from the biggest to the smallest (in terms of audience size – but remember (and this is what makes blogs so great), some of the very best commentary comes from blogs with a very limited audience – for now). I hesitate to mention anyone by name, for fear that I’ll leave someone out, but you know who you are, and I thank you.

My biggest thanks go to the regular readers; thanks to the wonderful world of stat counters, and analytic software, you can find out a lot about your audience, including how many visitors are first-timers, and how many come back weekly, monthly, or even several times a day. It’s very gratifying to me that a good chunk of my traffic is composed of repeat visitors.

Decision ’08 was originally intended to be more focused on the 2008 election (duh!) than it has ended up; frankly, I’m too excited by too many things to maintain that focus. However, as the 2006 election approaches, the political focus will become sharper again, and I have some ideas percolating in the back of my noggin as to possible revamps and retooling that will hopefully keep things fresh and fun.

So thanks for visiting, thanks for coming back, write or comment whenever you like, and God bless each and every one of you (and may you and your families have a safe, enjoyable Thanksgiving!)…

UPDATE 10:09 p.m.: Okay, my blogiversary doesn’t officially start until midnight, and it’s already off to a great start…thanks to AJ Strata (and thanks for the kind words, AJ) for alerting me to a mention in syndicated columnist Jack Kelly’s column:

…[W]hat really makes Mr. Woodward, in the delicious phrase of Web logger Mark Coffey, “the Grinch who stole Fitzmas,” is his admission that it might have been he who mentioned to Mr. Libby that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA.

Pretty cool…

Thanks to Leon H for the link and kind words…and thanks to the Commissar for drawing attention to my Deadhead roots (RIP, Jerry)…thanks also to Politechnical and Betsy Newmark…

Thanks also go out to the good Dr. Shackleford (welcome back, Rusty!)…

Speaking of Blogiversaries, Academic Elephant celebrated hers on Friday! Many happy returns…

November 20th, 2005 | Category: Navel-Gazing | 35 comments

35 comments to Decision ’08 Turns One

Leave a Reply

 

 

 

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>