Well, it doesn't seem like a year, but one year ago today I started Team America's 10th District Blog. You can read our first post here.
I'm very proud to say that I have kept the pledge we made all that way back in Post #1:
"I hereby pledge to keep this Blog a place where reasoned, intelligent discourse is the order of the day, and people with differing viewpoints will not be stifled, simply because they disagree."
Promise kept. I'm also proud to say that in a number of cases, we've broken stories here before they made it to the MSM, including the Terry Link petition scandal and Dan Seals' "professor-gate," among other.
FYI, we have had over 41,000 hits to date. Given how things accelerate as Election Day approaches, we just may hit 50,000 by election day. While that may not be much in comparison to some blogs, we have a pretty narrow focus here, so I'm quite gratified. Moreover, we have plenty of hits from folks in Washington and elsewhere that seem to be very interested in the goings-on here in the 10th.
Promise kept. I'm also proud to say that in a number of cases, we've broken stories here before they made it to the MSM, including the Terry Link petition scandal and Dan Seals' "professor-gate," among other.
FYI, we have had over 41,000 hits to date. Given how things accelerate as Election Day approaches, we just may hit 50,000 by election day. While that may not be much in comparison to some blogs, we have a pretty narrow focus here, so I'm quite gratified. Moreover, we have plenty of hits from folks in Washington and elsewhere that seem to be very interested in the goings-on here in the 10th.
Many, many thanks for your readership and all your support.
Posts
20 comments:
Thanks TA - for providing a place when we agree (Kirk needs to stay and Link needs to go)and when we don't (Hillary would still be a better President).
Thanks fellow posters - for insight and humor and the occasional crazy rant.
And finally, Thanks Ellen - for your partisan censorship that provided the impetus to start this blog.
My pleasure, UM. I was going to mention Ellen in my post but I didn't want to dignify her with any credit, although if she hadn't kicked me off, I don't know if I ever would have dived in to this.
But if anyone wants to drop her a line and thank her, feel free!
Tell her TA sent you.
Happy One-Year Anniversary!
There aren't too many blogs I read on a regular basis - However, TeamAmerica is one I check out daily! Keep up the great work TA! Go Kirk! Go Gray! Go McCain!
Jim
Good work and thanks for stepping up. You are the first of a new generation of Illinois leadership and I hope you can see from our daily visits and the coverage you are getting in the mainstream media that people appreciate your work.
Thanks, TA for this amazing year of great posts. And you are right in not dignifying that woman who made all of this happen. Hopefully she will soon disappear and just spend her days with her cat.
You've kept your promise, you've done a great service by providing all of us a place to get some issues off our collective chests. The best is yet to come.
Anon 12:48:
Seriously? Blogging does not make anyone a leader.
TA:
Why don't you run for public office? If you win your primary race, then maybe you will have persuaded people with this site.
I'm not writing that to try to insult you in any way. I'm just of the impression that people read (and write) blogs for one of only two reasons:
1) They have already made up their minds, and they want to tell others they are right.
2) They have already made up their minds, and they want to read posts by people who agree with them in order to validate their opinion in their minds.
Has anyone actually changed his or her opinion about anything because of something on a blog?
But at least you don't delete posts. I commend you for that.
Anon 1:53- I appreciate your comment but I'm not sure what to tell you. I can't tell you that I ever changed anyone's mind with anything we have said here. But that's not necessarily the (only) goal.
The first goal is the dissemination of information, as well as opinion. I'd fairly certain that without this blog, many local issues such as Terry Link's petition issue and a whole bunch of the dumb stuff Dan Seals has pulled, would get much less, if any, attention. Not only have we had a documented impact on the MSM, as they have picked up stories they otherwise might not have, it also serves as a storehouse of information for people who are looking for insight on particlar races. Google the names of candidates and see how often the TA blog turns up- that means that the public is getting an earful from our point of view. They can see what we have to say and the facts we cite, and then they can make up their own mind. For example, someone who might see a passing reference to Terry Link's petition issues and then does an Internet search is going to hit this site and get more information than they probably wanted. Without this site, that would not happen.
Also, based on my sitemeter, I can see that the reading public includes a lot of folks from Washington, including those that have considerable control of purse-strings, such as the DCCC. If the DCCC decides to spent a million less on Dan Seals because I've helped educated them as to what a goof he really is, I can rest easy.
So, I'm not insulted at all, and thanks for stopping by.
Anon, political blogs are what talk radio was 20 years ago, a new media political force with direct impact on the process.
The daily kos, a liberal zoo of exotic ideas and foreign characters gets more readers every day than does the biggest newspaper in the united states, the usa today.
Further the information posted on this site like some of the liberal versions nationally, is better and more up to date than the msm work which is why ta's hobby is putting these professional tribsters out of work.
I for one think TA should expand after the election, have guest commentary from local candidates and smart people like Ed P. Kelly, and make this the go to source of 10th politics.
I don't think people in the 10th who vote Republican are the "evangelical" types found in more rural areas, but this is still worth reading:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/13/
former_mccain_supporter_accuses_the_senator
I think McCain has been acting rather desparately, and Palin isn't helping (as Mark Kirk noted).
TA, the funny thing is Ellen's blog posts have hardly any comments on them (if any!!!), its sad. I guess now that she has gone fascist many people are turned off by her. Well...good, she's only harming her own cause.
Anon 7:00- I agree- here's four possible explanations:
A) Since TA and Lou Atsaves were kicked off, no one needs to comment because all of Ellen's groupies simply take what she says as gospel and never question it;
B) No one can make it through to the end of her manifestos (posts) without falling asleep;
C) Everyone's full up on crazy and doesn't need any more; or
D) All of the above.
You decide.
TA and Anon 7:00, there's an old axiom that one reaps what one sows. When one engages is the kind of vicious and outrageous gutter attacks it comes back to roost. I hope she and her cat find some solace in their quiet time. And yes, TA, she and her groupies are just that: groupies so there is no need to comment on anything. She is pathetic and so over the top that she is irrelevant. Her most recent attack on Mark shows that statement to be true. As to the length of her posts, well, they are, as you point out, diatribes that ramble on and on in her attempt to 'gild' her lilly. I've said it before: ignore her and hopefully she will just disappear.
The democrats are at their zenith right now. The president is hated like bartman at game 6, they aren't governing so no way to have to demonstrate results, and republicans are about to lose and so the finger pointing is beginning.
Tomorrow however is a different story and if Ellen's coverage of local political failure is any indication, she better enjoy this because it's all down hill from here.
David From was a key to kirk success in 2000 and sad to see Oberweis not doing better.
TA, this is anon 7:00. I have to go with D. I think this is the beginning of the end for Seals, Ellen, her Pussy, and her little blog. Although for Seals the beginning of the end came a long time ago. Also, I think her own hypocrisy has been exposed, and people cannot possibly take someone who is a so called "first ammendment advocate" seriously when she censors her own blog! I mean c'mon...is she that dumb?
My mom voted in Northbrook today and she said an old man wearing a McCain hat and with a Kirk sign taped to the back of his car was yelling at a Seals volunteer who was just passing out fliers and then chased her into the township hall. I'm no Seals fan but if anyone knows someone from the Kirk campaign they should know that s*** turns people off in a BIG way. People were watching and my mom said that it definitely looked like the man was crazy.
Also, there are Kirk yard signs up in the median on Palatine Road, is that legal to do? I think that kind of campaigning makes the Congressman look bad. It's not like people don't know his name.
Campaigns are like the NFL Draft, your candidate is as great as you can dream him to be. Once he gets on the field or gets in government it's a whole other story which is why Ellen is so darn quiet about the county and state. It's also interesting to see all these yard signs for democrat state candidates who seem to keep their mouths shut when it comes time to govern.
David Brooks is right today in the ny times, the democrats in 2 months will have to govern and they will do it at a bad time so they will piss people off and their policies will screw up the country. Clinton blew it, Obama will blow it, and if we keep fighting the Ellen's and her neo-commie cronies we will not blow the chance to remove that cabal.
TA needs to publicize this blog if they hope to have any impact on the public. 41,000 hits in a year is not something I would brag about.
It's 41,000 hits more than you have, loser. So happens that Ellen herself only recently broke 100,000 and she's been blogging for years longer than I have. But the real proof in the pudding is the links we get from blogs like Capitol Fax and the notice we get from the MSM, or did you miss that part of the post?
Better get off the computer at Seals headquarters and make some phone calls.
Glad you took the gloves off and told that doofas where to go, TA. To know that over 41,000 people have read your posts in a year is nothing short of awesome. That sore loser is just that, a loser. Your blog has energized and educated scores of people to the truth regarding Congressman Kirk's positions. I'm pleased as could be that you were dismissed from that insidious woman's blog. Had you just stayed there doing battle with her insane and twisted posts we would never have had the kind of enthusiastic support we've seen for our Congressman this past year. You have given many of us a chance to 'talk'. Thank You, TA.
Right now the folks at the DCCC are sitting in their offices looking at maps seeing that they could use the million they haven't spent on Dan that they promised to, and thinking we have been after kirk for 4 years, he's raised 5 million, he's in obama's backyard and our guy is still losing, why waste it here when we can win seats in bumblefuck where the ads cost nothing?
Thus Dan will get a call sometime next week if the bottom doesn't fall out from mccain saying that they won't be supporting him anymore.
Post a Comment