Whether or not Kossack heads actually exploded throughout the leftosphere this weekend, I cannot say. Reports will trickle in… or not. But Newsweek’s experiment of pairing the Great and Powerful Kos with the Great and Powerful Rove is off and running, and it’s not too soon to draw some preliminary conclusions. First, in terms of drawing blog hype, Newsweek could hardly done a better job of securing two more polarizing and potentially intriguing figures — for the left and right each, I’m having a hard time coming up with any two people in politics who inspire as much passion in their detractors outside of current and former presidents.
I’ll leave the reviews to others, but 24 hours after both stories hit the web, how are they doing in terms of measurable attention? Newsweek provides two metrics that we must assume are the most accurate, simply because they are based on internal numbers, even though Newsweek does not provide actual numbers. I understand why they don’t release them, but if the Digg-ification of the Internet continues apace, they will eventually. So which of the two was e-mailed more than the other?
As we see, this was a clear win for Rove. As of about 10 p.m. on Monday night, Rove’s piece has been e-mailed more often — but we still don’t know by how much. Second, Newsweek’s list of the top 10 most viewed stories:
Even without precise figures, this one paints a clearer picture: Rove is at number one, and Kos is nowhere to be found. Short of a Chris Bowers Google bomb, Rove is the greatest and most powerful.
How can this be? Kos is arguably at the zenith of his fame, with appearances on The Colbert Report and Meet the Press earlier in the year, still reigning as one of the RNC’s favorite bogeymen. Rove on the other hand is out of the White House and for all anyone knows, out of national politics. It may say something about Time readers just not knowing who Kos is, but I’m operating under the assumption that the online version of Newsweek reaches what IPDI has termed the “Poli-fluentials.” To be sure, time will tell. One possibility is that Kos, with his eminently Internet-based platform, stands to do better over the long run. But I also ran the Newsweek column’s permalinks through Technorati to find out how many times each had been linked by another blog. It wasn’t close. At all:
Ouch. Then again, if you look at the top blogs linking to both articles (results above are sorted by authority) a clear majority hail from the left. Maybe the left still remains more interested in Rove than the right is in Kos.
Another possibilty is more subjective, but I’ll offer it anyway: Maybe Kos just isn’t that interesting a writer. Like more than a few in my line of work, I’ve been perusing Matt Bai’s “The Argument” lately, and Bai does little to conceal his skepticism of Moulitsas’ political knowledge. Now, I have read both articles, and I did find Rove’s much more interesting. But don’t take my word for it — the blogosphere seems to agree. I have also seen both speak in a public setting, and perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising, but the seasoned campaign veteran was certainly more compelling than his younger upstart opponent. And there was the time when Kos got a tryout with ideo-journalistic Washington, but didn’t quite make the cut.
An aside: Last week I went with my colleagues and associates Jon Henke, Leslie Bradshaw and Jesse Thomas to see Rove co-keynote Yahoo’s Citizen 2.0 midday bash with Max Cleland (!) at the Willard Intercontinental. They’ve already written about it in detail, but I can’t help noting that their study merely put a slightly different gloss on the IPDI report linked above, i.e. “Citizen 2.0″ has replaced “Poli-fluential.”
Just about Rove, however, I must say: His arguments and observations were as well-honed as any “Internet expert” I’ve seen address a political crowd. And Rove knew what he was talking about: He recalled early computer hard drives he owned, admitted to his membership in the Apple cult, delivered a paean to Moore’s Law, and mused about the long-term effects of TiVo and time-shifting. He spoke of the Allen/Webb race (though he didn’t use the word “Macaca”) and cited studies of the blogosphere like any contributor to TechPresident. That’s why I was a little surprised and disappointed to see Michael Bassik dismiss him as “Not Citzen 2.0″ when in fact the definition given by Yahoo! makes Rove almost the perfect example. I was less surprised to see Think Progress willfully misinterpret the goings-on, but Henke has that one covered. Say what you will about Karl Rove, but don’t say he’s not a geek.
On the other hand, he did mispronounce “Kos.”
P.S. This is as good a time as any to share this photo, taken with my iPhone, of Karl Rove taking a picture of me with his iPhone:
The man on the right is former Senator Cleland. Believe it or not, they got along like old chums. My guess, and it’s just a hunch, is that Cleland is better at hiding his thoughts and feelings than his boisterous persona suggests. The man on the left appears to be from an Aphex Twin video.
P.P.S. What if Rove turned to blogging? Tom DeLay’s occasionally updated blog is in relaunch limbo at the moment, which provides not the best precedent (despite my own pleasantly surprised initial reaction) but then DeLay was never known as a thinker, either, and left official Washington under considerably less triumphant circumstances. So I think Rove could do well, and I bet he would even write it. If he consented to participate in rightosphere activities like appearing on Heading Right Radio (warning: automatic audio), he could quickly become one of the most influential voices on the Internet. But even then, I’m not sure he’d be the most influential voice on the right.
P.P.P.S. Then again, we haven’t even begun to address the matter of which fledgling columnist Google thinks is the greater and more powerful.
Now, I have read both articles, and I did find Rove’s much more interesting.
Of course you did, and of course most other Newsweek readers did.
For one thing. Rove leads with an anecdote. About him being in the West Wing — oooooh! And about Hillary Clinton, who is famous and controversial.
Also Rove has been successful at real politics, which is a higher species of power than the web diddling in which Kos is prominent. (Advantage: non-blogosphere!) People find power fascinating, and flock to listen when someone who has successfully gained power promises to slip them some inside dope.
It’s all bullshit, of course. I can just see Rove telling Giuliani to “aggressively campaign for the votes of America’s minorities” — and then the two of them falling to the floor in helpless laughter. The rest of the tips are the political equivalent of those Cosmopolitan “How to Drive Your Man Wild in Bed” articles.
Rove didn’t outdraw Kos with the quality of his thought and his prose. He did it by working the angles. Just like last time!
Good article! I have just purchased “THE ARGUMENT” by Matt Bai as I thought it an interesting subject. Now after your comment above, it will be the next book I will read.
RWD
@ Roy
Good point about people being drawn to power; that undoubtedly works in his favor. And his lead anecdote is juicy, but you’re right that his checklist is nothing new — “Be strong on Iraq” — which in fact is not much different from Kos’, which might have read “Be strong on withdrawing from Iraq.” Both columns counseled certitude, which if the candidates take their advice, should make for a more interesting 2008.
@ RightWingDog
I think you’ll dig it. Bai also makes no effort to conceal his sympathy for the progressive cause, even if he has a hard time describing what that actually means, but it’s nothing if not an honest portrait. If he pulled punches in his reporting, he didn’t pull many. (I also recommend Byron York’s “The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy,” which covered much of the same ground, albeit as an outsider.)
It’s also possible that because Kos has a hugely popular website on which people can find his opinions already, they don’t see much of a point in reading some article he wrote for Newsweek. Contrast that with Rove being otherwise out of the spotlight but still having interesting things to say about politics and this makes a lot more sense.
Thanx for the info!
I read the Newsweek articles, I normally do not pick up that magazine but I did and this issue had several very good reads.
I, possibly being a bit RIGHTsided, thought the Rove piece was far better than Kos’. I don’t believe the one sided linking as Timothy points out was due to the Kos website as these links were to other blogs, the same could have been done to KOS. They
took the RIGHT road to Rove which; if the blogs were listed may have been conservative blogs but there are as many left leaning blogs that could have snatched up a link as well..
Giving Kos his due, he is obviously intelligent but he should get off the Bush focus. People are getting tired of the blame for everything going to Bush mantra. I beleve that, as you point out, time will tell but if Rove can keep it interesting, his superior knowledge of politics will win out over Kos. Remember, Rove has been there, Kos has not!
RWD