Could you make money with a POLITICAL blog?

Amazon books and something like maybe Cafe Press or one of those type of companies for T shirts and other wearables or mugs. What you pick to feature, though, should directly relate to your articles and gist of the blog.

If you're updating a couple times a week with good original content, you might have luck listening to Paul Myers post above and trying to add a membership only section of your blog, especially with the 2012 elections coming up this year!

I took the Adsense off my political blog to see if Amazon would be more profitable, but Adsense was serving me political ads (Ron Paul ads, Herman Cain ads).

How much money do you think the Drudge Report makes on a given day? Granted, it's not a blog exactly, but the same principle applies.

Most of the political sites have a lot of ads from political campaigns and special interest groups running on them. There are other types of ideology-correlated ads also, like ads for "green" consumer items on left-leaning websites and ads for outdoor gear on right-leaning websites. Some sites also have web stores where you can buy books (their own or others), t-shirts, etc.

As long as you can get the traffic, you should be able to monetize a political site.

My suggestion is to have the blog you are interested in. You will also need separate pages where you target buttons, bumpers stickers, shirts, autographs, etc., or oddball stuff. Promoting Sarah Palin's glasses was good for me while it lasted. Stuff like that.

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No idea Paul. But from what I can gleam from Wikipedia it appears he was writing on the massively popular Daily Kos site, and made his name not from "political blogging" as that is most often though of, but from putting his occupation as a statistician to use and being able to predict with stunning accuracy election outcomes.

Which I presume meant a major headache for gambling sites offering election bets.

Despite his intellect, I wonder if he could have made more from the gambling sites instead of whatever he made from being the blogging Nostradamus of elections.

Ultimately, I imagine your point is it isn't general political blogging where the money necessarily is, but in being the world's best in a super specific niche that for some, could be extremely profitable.

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Brian,

I believe he started with the blog at fivethirtyeight.com. It currently redirects to his blog at the NYT, but back then it was a political geek's paradise. The stuff at Daily KOS, IIRC, came later, after he'd demonstrated that his methodology translated well from baseball to politics.

That's all from memory, though, so it may not be right in every detail. The folks at InTrade loved him. You don't have to be the best, but you have to bring something to it that no-one else does. Or be interesting enough in an area that would draw a lot of attention from a passionate crowd.

I would wager, for example, that you could do very well with a blog that focused on the disgust so many Americans have for the extreme partisanship and incivility that is the hallmark of our current politics.

I'd like to see a site that did properly qualified linguistic analysis of various political speeches, ads and commentary, with an eye to the speech writers and copywriters of the world. (Maybe we could recruit Drew Westen for the job?)

A generic political blog isn't going to be a big money-maker, but if you have a unique enough hook, you could do well with it. And maybe end up a "personality" like Silver has become.


Paul

Most major political websites have started in the last 5 years. Dailykos.com, redstate.com huffingtonpost.com, and even politico.com

Sure, you could just publish your thoughts on a blog and maybe make a few bucks, but those sites had compelling writing, then visitors, then major advertisers and other monetization options (subscriptions).

I don't know Dailykos's total history, but their format is very interesting. I'd be curious if they were the ones that made it popular. Basically the idea of "Front Page Diaries" (featured writers) and Guest Diaries that can get "Rec'd" by other users so they are more prominent. THe founder is also the founder of the sbnation.com blog network which uses the same format.

Nate Silver wasn't really affiliated with DailyKos.com, he was just a guest blogger there...just like you or I could be.

Hi Paul,

I think I understand. :confused:

If I were a political candidate and I chose to launch my own promotional campaign with these factors as the main thrust -

a) instead of focusing on my strengths, I attack the weaknesses of my opposition, in particular via ad hominem (attacking the person) - even though I am not distracting that person with this attack, but instead distracting the audience, is it still classed as a fallacy/logical fallacy?

b) my political party is brand new with new ideas. The current incumbent has been in power for some time, using traditionally accepted policies and the outcome isn't good for the people. Without going into too much detail, I base my campaign around the idea that 'new is better', employing ad novitem (appeal to novelty).

Again, am I using a fallacy here or is there a different name for it purely because I am using it for the purpose of propaganda to influence the masses, rather than in a direct 'duel' between myself and another person?

What's confusing me the most is the second of the two last sentences that I quoted -

Is it not possible to be involved in debate or argument, even if the two opponents are not immediately replying to each other in a 'traditional' kind of instantaneous debate, plus each opponent is actually directly addressing an audience rather than each other?

I saw it that Obama was presenting his statement in a way that suggested that he was just 'reporting the news', when in fact he appeared (to me) to be engaged in 'political point scoring' in order to reinforce his position - to take the credit for the subject of the news as well as using his words to appeal to the general and chiefly patriotic emotions of the listener much more than just reporting the news.

For example, between 0.40 and 1.40 he goes into vivid and possibly(?) unnecessary detail about certain things in order to make his point.

I realise that the people behind the website seem to be confused - for example when I look at lists of fallacies I don't see many of the terms used in the video.

But I am keen to understand more. Is he actually employing fallacies, propaganda, something else, or is he simply reporting the facts with his own opinion thrown in, in an entirely innocent manner?

That one gets the "Humorous Typo of the Week" award.


Paul

Put the right product in front of the right people and you should be able to generate some revenue
Right?

You are 1000000% Correct. THIS is the secret sauce to blogging. Build AUTHORITY first and foremost. It is a MARATHON not a sprint.

Or one that bashes both