I have to say, my more-thoughtful side is more intrigued than disappointed. A couple things to keep in mind are that:

1) it’s repeatedly been found (Adamic and Glance 2005, Hindman 2008) that the blogosphere is very useful for facilitating discussion *within* communities-of-interest, but not so effective at facilitating discussion *across* them. So I’m not sure how much of an “on-going debate” is actually being stymied by the lack of vibrant online conservative gathering spaces.

2) conservatives have seen some real successes in using the internet to field an *offline* team — think tea parties and health care town halls. So in the arenas where the left and right do vocally interact, we see both sides fielding a team. I differ from some other analysts, most notably Patrick Ruffini, in my estimation of how impressive the town hall protests and similar events actually are (Ruffini thinks they indicate conservatives have achieved parity with the progressive netroots, I think that’s way overstated), but it is certainly an indication that they’re “fielding a team.”

3) we’re going to keep seeing more internet-mediated conservative action in the coming months/years, simply because we’re going to keep seeing more conservative action of all types in protest against the Obama agenda. So the big puzzle is why they seem to keep failing at a few basic infrastructure challenges. Community blogging software is helpful and not all that complicated. Why can’t RedState or a RedState clone gain a substantial following?

4) as a longtime fan of the beleaguered Washington Wizards basketball franchise, I have little pity for teams that suffer from the flu when going up against a strong, healthy opponent. Happens to one of my teams every year, seems only fair if it should happen to someone else’s now and then!

thanks for visiting,
-DK