Right Wing Nut House

Has it really been 7 years? Nearly 3,700 posts, 4 million visitors, 5.5 million page views and a lot of emotional energy expended in that time.

Numbers don’t tell the story. When I started this blog, September 23, 2004, we were in the midst of a hard fought presidential campaign that was in doubt until well into election night. The Dan Rather Affair had just hit the blogosphere and after reading everything I could about the matter, commenting on blog posts didn’t seem to be enough. With the encouragement of Ed Morrissey, I opened a Blogger account and began posting. Until about a year ago, I rarely missed a day.

What followed was not quite the “Rise and Fall” of a blogger - more like a journey of self discovery. Turning inward, I found my voice. It was not a voice that many on the right wanted to listen to — a fact that me in my towering ignorance never expected. Nor did I help my cause much by lashing out on occasion against my detractors.

But it is, what it is, and that’s that. I found to my delight that there was still a market for rational, less ideological analysis, albeit a smaller and less profitable one. But with my two jobs at American Thinker and PJ Media, along with other independent articles sold to a couple of sites, I am making a better living than I ever thought possible as a writer/editor. And with a book in the works, who knows what the future will bring?

I have nothing really profound to say about the last 7 years. Blogs have changed dramatically — fewer links (sharing), many more bloggers, but still room for important voices to rise up and be heard. It is much harder to accomplish that today. And the Twitterverse and Facebook revolutions have altered the landscape even more.

A little over a year ago, I realized I was burned out and began writing less. That is going to change — as soon as I can divest myself of one of my jobs. The problem now isn’t so much that I’ve lost the desire to write but rather I have no time to do it. I am gearing up to restart this blog; a redesign, a new domain name (rickmoran.com), and much more frequent and extensive postings. In short, I am going to try and raise my profile on the right, hoping that there is a larger audience for my kind of comment and analysis than there was previously.

In previous years, I have used this occasion to thank those who have helped me along the way. I see no sense in repeating myself. You know who you are, and you know I will be eternally grateful.

The number 7 has had a mystical history in the history of the civilized world. All sorts of good things have been associated with the digit — except perhaps the Seven Deadly Sins, of which I am on number 5 and striving hard to finish before I flee my mortal coil and join my fellow demigods on Olympus. But I am hoping that that this will indeed be a Lucky 7 year and that you - my most loyal and beloved readers — will join me in the adventure.