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RedState’s mission statement, posted on the site, explicitly one-ups the famous motto of William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review. “RedState does not stand athwart history yelling stop,” it says. “We yell ‘ready,’ ‘aim,’ and ‘fire,’ too.”

RedState draws about a quarter of a million unique visitors a month, according to comScore—a fraction of the audience of conservative sites like Newsmax and The Daily Caller. Erickson himself is not nearly as visible a pundit as, say, Ann Coulter or Karl Rove. But he may be more influential: His pronouncements can decide whether a policy lives or dies. His anointment can lift a candidate out of obscurity. Members of Congress have him on speed dial.


Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, told me he consults Erickson regularly, and the conservative faction of the House GOP looks to RedState for guidance. “A lot of times those articles actually steer the direction of members of Congress as we’re making decisions in Washington, D.C.,” Jim Bridenstine, a first-term congressman from Oklahoma, told me, citing gun background checks and immigration reform as two recent areas where many Republicans were leaning toward compromise until RedState urged them to resist.

Erickson’s influence stems from the fact that he’s not just a pundit—he’s an activist who gets involved in contentious primary battles, bestowing endorsements that draw attention and cash to little-known candidates. In 2009, he came out for Marco Rubio in Florida’s Senate race when the former state legislator was polling nearly 50 points behind and the whole GOP apparatus was backing Charlie Crist, the former governor who has since switched parties. More endorsements for Rubio followed, including from the deep-pocketed Senate Conservatives Fund and the Club for Growth, and Crist dropped out of the primary to run as an independent. Rubio ended up winning the general election by 19 points.

Other conservative challengers who benefited from Erickson’s endorsements in the 2010 cycle include Mike Lee, who took down Bob Bennett, a three-term Republican senator from Utah, and Rand Paul, who ran in the Kentucky Senate primary against Mitch McConnell’s preferred candidate, Trey Grayson.

A South Carolina state lawmaker named Nikki Haley was considered a long shot for the 2010 gubernatorial nomination when she caught Erickson’s fancy with her conservative zeal. For 10 days straight, RedState featured her on its front page, urging readers to donate. Haley gained momentum, and a late endorsement from Sarah Palin helped catapult her to the top of the field. “RedState was there in the very beginning,” Haley, who considers Erickson a “dear friend,” told me. “I was ‘Nikki who?’ ” Haley was just reelected to a second term as South Carolina’s governor, and has been on the longer lists of potential 2016 vice-presidential nominees.

Ted Cruz came from 3 percent in the polls and a three-to-one cash disadvantage to win his 2012 Senate primary in Texas, thanks in part to Erickson’s boosting. Cruz has attended every one of RedState’s annual “Gatherings” since they began in 2009. Cruz and Erickson have become friends, and Erickson has said Cruz is as great as “all the Beatles in one person” and called him “the leader of the conservative movement.” (Cruz returns the favor. “RedState gives people a voice,” he told me.)

Ibanez wrote:I've heard of him but shame on people who name their children in this manner.

Grizalltheway wrote:He's Erick, son of Erick. You non-Nords wouldn't understand.

CAA Flagship wrote:

Grizalltheway wrote:He's Erick, son of Erick. You non-Nords wouldn't understand.

Redundant.

kalm wrote:Conks:

Is he really the most powerful conservative pundit in America?

If so, is that a good thing?

RedState’s mission statement, posted on the site, explicitly one-ups the famous motto of William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review. “RedState does not stand athwart history yelling stop,” it says. “We yell ‘ready,’ ‘aim,’ and ‘fire,’ too.”

RedState draws about a quarter of a million unique visitors a month, according to comScore—a fraction of the audience of conservative sites like Newsmax and The Daily Caller. Erickson himself is not nearly as visible a pundit as, say, Ann Coulter or Karl Rove. But he may be more influential: His pronouncements can decide whether a policy lives or dies. His anointment can lift a candidate out of obscurity. Members of Congress have him on speed dial.


Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, told me he consults Erickson regularly, and the conservative faction of the House GOP looks to RedState for guidance. “A lot of times those articles actually steer the direction of members of Congress as we’re making decisions in Washington, D.C.,” Jim Bridenstine, a first-term congressman from Oklahoma, told me, citing gun background checks and immigration reform as two recent areas where many Republicans were leaning toward compromise until RedState urged them to resist.

Erickson’s influence stems from the fact that he’s not just a pundit—he’s an activist who gets involved in contentious primary battles, bestowing endorsements that draw attention and cash to little-known candidates. In 2009, he came out for Marco Rubio in Florida’s Senate race when the former state legislator was polling nearly 50 points behind and the whole GOP apparatus was backing Charlie Crist, the former governor who has since switched parties. More endorsements for Rubio followed, including from the deep-pocketed Senate Conservatives Fund and the Club for Growth, and Crist dropped out of the primary to run as an independent. Rubio ended up winning the general election by 19 points.

Other conservative challengers who benefited from Erickson’s endorsements in the 2010 cycle include Mike Lee, who took down Bob Bennett, a three-term Republican senator from Utah, and Rand Paul, who ran in the Kentucky Senate primary against Mitch McConnell’s preferred candidate, Trey Grayson.

A South Carolina state lawmaker named Nikki Haley was considered a long shot for the 2010 gubernatorial nomination when she caught Erickson’s fancy with her conservative zeal. For 10 days straight, RedState featured her on its front page, urging readers to donate. Haley gained momentum, and a late endorsement from Sarah Palin helped catapult her to the top of the field. “RedState was there in the very beginning,” Haley, who considers Erickson a “dear friend,” told me. “I was ‘Nikki who?’ ” Haley was just reelected to a second term as South Carolina’s governor, and has been on the longer lists of potential 2016 vice-presidential nominees.

Ted Cruz came from 3 percent in the polls and a three-to-one cash disadvantage to win his 2012 Senate primary in Texas, thanks in part to Erickson’s boosting. Cruz has attended every one of RedState’s annual “Gatherings” since they began in 2009. Cruz and Erickson have become friends, and Erickson has said Cruz is as great as “all the Beatles in one person” and called him “the leader of the conservative movement.” (Cruz returns the favor. “RedState gives people a voice,” he told me.)

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/arc ... ge/383503/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Gil Dobie wrote:I once knew an Einar Einarson, Sigmund Sigmundson and Fingar Fingarson from a local Icelandic community.

Baldy wrote:

kalm wrote:Conks:

Is he really the most powerful conservative pundit in America?

If so, is that a good thing?



http://www.theatlantic.com/features/arc ... ge/383503/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

When the Donks have pundits like Melissa Harris-Perry, Martin Bashir, Lawrence O'Donnell, etc., Erickson sounds like a boring yawner. Big swing and a miss, kalm.

Grizalltheway wrote:

CAA Flagship wrote: Redundant.

No you are

CAA Flagship wrote:

Grizalltheway wrote:
No you are

Punctuation.

Raised in Idaho by a single mother, Messina moved to Washington in 1995, in his mid-20s, to take a job as a legislative aide for Max Baucus, the conservative Democratic senator from Montana (now ambassador to China). Baucus supported George W. Bush-era personal and corporate tax cuts, and other policies favored by the Wall Street firms, pharmaceutical companies, and lobbyists, from whom he raised so much money.

Up until 2002, Messina was still largely unknown. But that year, when managing Baucus’s Senate re-election campaign, he released one of the more homophobic ads of modern political times. It featured footage from a 20-year-old TV ad for a hair salon run by Baucus’s opponent, Mike Taylor –who at the time was 20 points behind in the polls and had no chance of winning –who was seen massaging a man’s face while wearing an open-front shirt, and hence was obviously supposed to be gay.

The ad, set to a porn soundtrack, caused Taylor to drop out of the race. When he announced two weeks later that he was resuming a limited campaign aimed largely at “getting the slander out of Montana politics,” Messina issued a public letter that asked Taylor to sign a “clean campaign pledge” for the remainder of the race, saying, “We take you at your word that you want to turn over a new leaf and run a positive campaign.”

This sort of scumminess put Messina on the map in Democratic circles. He also became known as a world class asshole who kept an “enemies” list on an Excel spreadsheet. “Everybody was a douchebag,” says a person who knew him then. “He kept score.”

In 2008, Messina joined Obama’s presidential campaign and after the inauguration was named as a deputy chief of staff under the awful Rahm Emanuel. One of his first jobs was to salvage Timothy Geithner’s confirmation as Treasury Secretary, which was endangered due to tax irregularities. The fact that Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, was in charge of Geithner’s confirmation made Messina’s job a lot easier. (The basic story is told in this Washington Post blow job, or “beat sweetener,” as it’s known in D.C. journalism circles.)

kalm wrote:

Baldy wrote:

When the Donks have pundits like Melissa Harris-Perry, Martin Bashir, Lawrence O'Donnell, etc., Erickson sounds like a boring yawner. Big swing and a miss, kalm.

I thought it was a good article and I kind of like the guy. What was I swinging at?

kalm wrote:And just to calm down Baldy's apoplexy, here's the story of a donk establishment hatchet man straight from Greenwald's site:

Raised in Idaho by a single mother, Messina moved to Washington in 1995, in his mid-20s, to take a job as a legislative aide for Max Baucus, the conservative Democratic senator from Montana (now ambassador to China). Baucus supported George W. Bush-era personal and corporate tax cuts, and other policies favored by the Wall Street firms, pharmaceutical companies, and lobbyists, from whom he raised so much money.

Up until 2002, Messina was still largely unknown. But that year, when managing Baucus’s Senate re-election campaign, he released one of the more homophobic ads of modern political times. It featured footage from a 20-year-old TV ad for a hair salon run by Baucus’s opponent, Mike Taylor –who at the time was 20 points behind in the polls and had no chance of winning –who was seen massaging a man’s face while wearing an open-front shirt, and hence was obviously supposed to be gay.

The ad, set to a porn soundtrack, caused Taylor to drop out of the race. When he announced two weeks later that he was resuming a limited campaign aimed largely at “getting the slander out of Montana politics,” Messina issued a public letter that asked Taylor to sign a “clean campaign pledge” for the remainder of the race, saying, “We take you at your word that you want to turn over a new leaf and run a positive campaign.”

This sort of scumminess put Messina on the map in Democratic circles. He also became known as a world class asshole who kept an “enemies” list on an Excel spreadsheet. “Everybody was a douchebag,” says a person who knew him then. “He kept score.”

In 2008, Messina joined Obama’s presidential campaign and after the inauguration was named as a deputy chief of staff under the awful Rahm Emanuel. One of his first jobs was to salvage Timothy Geithner’s confirmation as Treasury Secretary, which was endangered due to tax irregularities. The fact that Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, was in charge of Geithner’s confirmation made Messina’s job a lot easier. (The basic story is told in this Washington Post blow job, or “beat sweetener,” as it’s known in D.C. journalism circles.)

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014 ... on-estate/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

AZGrizFan wrote:Never heard of him.

CID1990 wrote:OL FU I noted that this thread had been blowed up real good and then your first post brought it back into legitimacy.

This is a criticism, not a compliment.

Gil Dobie wrote:I once knew an Einar Einarson, Sigmund Sigmundson and Fingar Fingarson from a local Icelandic community.