Posted on 05/26/2007 1:49:34 PM PDT by Eurotwit
A few weeks ago – in between Hillary Clinton’s official entry into the presidential race and the first Republican primary debate of the cycle – the fiery online conservative forum Free Republic marked a decade in operation as one of the premier online forums for right-wing political discussion.
It also experienced one of the biggest internal battles to rock the site since the 2000 election of George W. Bush -- a tumultuous campaign year that nearly tore the site apart, as its founder and chief administrator first cleansed commenting ranks of Bush supporters, then, later, rallied to his support.
At the heart of the latest controversy: the fight over the conservative bona fides of Rudy Giuliani.
Over the past few weeks, chaos has reigned in the “Freeper” community as members sympathetic to the former mayor's candidacy claim to have suffered banishment from the site. They were victimized, they say, by a wave of purges designed to weed out any remaining support for the Giuliani campaign on the popular conservative web forum. Another significant chunk of commenters have migrated away from the controversial site over the action, according to a number of former site members and conservative bloggers who have been tracking the situation.
In a plaintive post on the blog “Sweetness & Light,” exiled commenter Steve Gilbert, who says he does not support the former mayor’s campaign, blasted the site’s new “anti-Giuliani, anti-abortion jihad.” Since George W. Bush was elected president, he wrote, “there haven’t been any large scale [Free Republic] purges to speak of – until now.”
The fight began one month ago, when site founder Jim Robinson posted an anti-Giuliani manifesto titled: “Giuliani as the GOP presidential nominee would be a dagger in the heart of the conservative movement.” Then the virtual ax started to swing. Longtime posters to the freewheeling discussion threads, used to serious no-holds-barred web etiquette, were still stunned by the intensity of the anti-Rudy activity; conservative blogs buzzed with the development.
“Jim Robinson has been going on a tear demonizing Rudy Giuliani, because Rudy (agreeing with the vast majority of Americans), is personally opposed to abortions on a moral level…” complained a user on the GOPUSA Web site. “Anyone who posts any support for Giuliani at the site, if it's at all forceful, will be banned.”
(“Normally, we don't allow complaints about other conservative forums,” chided the moderator, but “…because it is being discussed all over the Internet, I'll make an exception.”)
Just a few months ago, Rudy Giuliani placed second in an early Free Republic straw poll; now, his support on the site has been virtually eliminated. “After the ‘April Purge,’ I don't think there are any Rudybots left around here,” noted Free Republic commenter “upchuck” in one recent post. “And if there are, they're not posting pro-Rudy stuff :).”
The forums weren’t the only venue for the Free Republic’s new antagonism toward Mr. Giuliani, which coincided with a wave of comments expressing similar sentiments from other corners of the conservative movement. A few days after Mr. Giuliani’s equivocal Roe v. Wade comments at the Republican presidential debate on May 3, a new “STOP RUDY NOW News & Information Thread” was featured on the site, and a newly-created stand-alone category debuted via a link from the homepage: “The Giuliani Truth File.” (So far this campaign season, Mr. Giuliani is the only candidate – Republican or Democratic – to be singled out for that level of scrutiny from the Free Republic.)
Why Rudy? Why now? Some conservative bloggers and former commenters contacted for their view of the continuing controversy say they believe that site founder Jim Robinson holds ideologically middling Republicans like Mr. Giuliani responsible for the GOP’s congressional loss and current woes. (They asked that their names be kept out of this story for fear of antagonizing the famously frisky site regulars.)
Others claim that the former mayor’s top-tier status is spurring frantic site administrators into action. Finally, one popular theory holds that the Free Republic is secretly hoping for another Clinton presidency that would send its Alexa ratings soaring back to levels it hasn’t experienced since its halcyon days of the Clinton impeachment, when a since-soured relationship with blog pioneer Matt Drudge and overwhelming anti-Clinton sentiment in Republican ranks helped make Free Republic one of the hottest Web sites in the nation. It hasn't recovered that luster since the Bush administration took over.
“It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s an observation,” said one blogger, who describes himself as a half-hearted Mitt Romney supporter. “They’ve still got a brand name that means something, but they’re not what they were in terms of real-world impact. A Hillary presidency would get them there.”
Robinson himself could not be reached for comment, but his original post laid out his case against Mr. Giuliani – a graphics-heavy presentation of some of the former mayor’s most damning moderate quotes in mainstream media venues, along with a color-coded report card tracking his less-than-doctrinaire positions on abortion, immigration, gays and guns.
Robinson, it should be noted, famously blasted George W. Bush’s presidential candidacy back in 2000, before a dramatic late-campaign about-face that saw him emerge as one of the GOP ticket’s biggest supporters. But whether or not Free Republic experiences a similar election-year shift this cycle, the site’s current campaign is spreading a dangerous primary-season meme of Rudy Giuliani as big-city liberal – and turning one of the most influential web forums in conservatism into an exclusive gathering place for those who share that view.
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Excellent post, calcowgirl.
My question is why does Hillary get brought in EVERY time a RINO candidate is criticized? And you will notice that it is NEVER done by supporters of conservatives like Hunter and Thompson.
For the record, if he is the nominee, I will reluctantly vote for Romney.
It is not false just because it doesn't jive with your own opinion. After Ron Paul's 9/11 statement, there are quite a few of us who would agree with Petronski's tagline.
In honor of The_Stalker, I’m bringing back my old tagline.
What an obsessive guy.
Creepy. You’re the kind of guy restraining orders are meant for.
Boy, you usually only see this kind of dedication in Larouche supporters.
Don’t worry, Ron’s probably just addled by the diet of fish sticks his mom fed him.
Source, please. LOL
My issue is with post #75. Why is questioning a serviceman's loyalty allowed, when the argument that might explain the personal feud has been deleted? And isn't it against FR rules to carry such personal feuds from thread to thread?
No, if freeplancee made a mistake about someone's signup date -- and he did -- there is a way to call attention to the mistake -- and someone did. And freep apologised.
I would have not brought this up except that someone on this thread has been arguing that the military is a back burner issue in the upcoming election. Since we are in the middle of a war, are the democrats are in the process of providing aid and comfort to the enemy, I think otherwise. I used a particular post showing disrespect to a serviceman in Iraq as an example of something that would not be tolerated on the FR I remember.
That kinda leaves out the interest on the debt and Chinese ownership of our Government debt. It's pay me now or pay me later. We are today's guardians of the nation's future unless, of course, we are only greedy for ourselves.
There are quite a number of people who have either gotten nuked(Travis), gotten themseles nuked deliberately in a kind of "fit" (Radio Astronomer), launched a jihad against FR (Howlin), asked JimRob to pull their account (chronic loser), or just quit posting. We seemed alot more friendly in the past, even when we strenuously disagreed. Like I said b4 I have been a lurker here for a while, and my wife has posted since 98 or 99. There seems to be alot more people who are both disgruntled and poorly informed here nowadays. That may just be my perception, though.
Though this may be true, why are none of these supposedly banned accounts named? It would lend credence to the claim and is easily verifiable by anyone here.
Let the complainants be named.
Poor baby had a boo boo. Did the mod kiss it and make it all better?
Good grief. Grow up! You have a history of charging into Ron Paul threads and trolling as hard as you can make your fingers fly.
Now you whine to the mods because he is "stalking" you? I have no problem with you posting, and posting to me when I haven't asked you to, and posting idiotic tripe when I know you are trolling. If I pulled that kind of whiney crap and went to the mods every time you would think me a baby. Yeah.
Again, grow up.
Fascinating Free Republic trivia: "creep" is available as a screen name.
LOL! Methinks he doth protest too much!
Pretty interesting report.
Dragging a disagreement from thread to thread is stalking. The cultish behavior of the L.Ron Paul crew is world-class, like a rash all over the internet--FR included.
7.62x51mm
Al Simmons
Ameribrit
areafiftyone
Aric2000
b-bone
Barset
Camber-G
cicero’s_son
Dark Skies
dc-zoo
Dominic Harr
dread
Echo Talon
elfman
FairOpinion
GenuineChocolateFace
Grand Old Partisan
GSlob
Hanging Chad
ilovew
Jhensy
KATIE-O
kellynch
Lance
liberty4alland4ever
Luis Gonzalez
MACVSOG68
MadIvan
Marli
Mia T
motife
mozartlover
Mr. Keys
Mudboy Slim
No!
OneTime
pageonetoo
Panda
Patti
Peach
prnd21
Pukin Dog
quidnunc
Radioastronomer
Red Warrior
sgtarky
Uncle Fud
WestVirginiaRebel
youngjim
zarf
Zeroisanumber
Some names there I’ll miss.
Shame.
I forgot Howlin was banned also.
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