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.
I like what I see in Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson. Either or both of those would be great.
Rooty doesn’t have a single issue that he claims to be strong on that can’t be debunked with the FACTS!
Yeah??? Well, bile is in the eye of the beholder, IMO.
Do you support her posting lies about Reagan to prop up Rudy?
However, her departure was very shortly after Jim found out about it.
I’m just glad it’s over. I don’t have the stomach for the dirty jobs like that. I don’t think I’d be a very good soldier either, but I’m sure grateful to those who are.
I really don't appreciate a puppet of the outcasts calling us kooky.
As someone posted recently, Howlin’s was probably the most ill advised comment in the history of FR.
666
Do you remember what we’ve discussed so far? Look again at post posts #569 and #573, and then explain to me how I’m telling you that diplomatic immunity is a municipal function. You’ve been alternating between playing coy with me, feeling out what I know of the specifics, and dramatic riotous indignation about something you seem to know but won’t explain. Now you try to accuse me of some addressing something that I already told you I’m not aware of? Are you drunk? Go play games with someone who has time for that crap.
Whether you want to admit it or not, they were much more mainstream in all aspects than the kooky fringe in here.
Funny, I always thought that Free Republic was a CONSERVATIVE forum and not a "mainstream" chat room. As Ronald Reagan proved, when conservative principles are demonstrated to be effective, the mainstream embraces them.
And you accuse ME of being drunk?
She sure hit all the leftist talking points, didn’t she?
Just saw this and my mind boggled! DCPatriot,where have you been? Haven't you followed any of the Terri threads these recent years? We were pestered, ridiculed, cursed, and laughed at by that band of bothers. Yes, that includes Peach who was a part of that salty gang. They were supported by new trolls and by ClownPosse which featured special ridicule of all related to Terri.
Why should any of us show you the links? That is a word trap often used by the departed band to put us on the defensive. You have been here a long time. You know how to search. Search the Terri Dailies and you will find most all, not all because the tag team did succeed in pushing some threads right off the map.
And they sounded then like you do now.
I wasn't down on that gaggle of irritants because of Rudy, but because of their assault on true conservative values, something you do not appear to understand.
That’s because she’s a leftist.
Thanks for clearing that up. I’ll try to give you some leeway in the future, for your speaking style, and not be so quick to take things personally.
I read Lucianne just to see if there is something posted there that I haven’t found on FR yet...same with NRO. Just tryin’ to keep up.
She’s one of the original Fred Thompson supporters. Hardly leftist, that.
Okay then refund their membership dues! Ha! Ha!
Well, she’s over at the anti-FReeper site she helps run supporting Roody.
First I heard of this...
Where did she get this son?....just curious?
Yep. Thompson or Hunter are way more likely to be bottom half on the ticket. Thompson , of the two, seems the only one remotely possible to be a grassroots johnnycomelately comeonanddraftme type of candidate, but he had better get on the stick soon and “announce” in some way if he is to be taken seriously-—and bear in mind that the longer he waits, the more ALL the existing Republican candidates will sneer at him as an overconfident dilettante. McCain also seems already a lost cause as the Pres candidate of choice, and the others, (though I do like Huckabee) look like also-rans. Sam Brownback came off worst of all in that debate a few weeks ago, but at least like more of a Republican that Ron Liberalitarian Paul. I see ONLY either Romney or Rudy as the choice, sanctioned by the Party Organization, and you’d better admit that THAT is what decides a nominee, and we could work all day and all night from now to November, for our favorite candidates and it wouldn’t amount to anything over what is now in the process of being decided by the RNC. Sorry to have come to that conclusion, but events of the last 20 years have PROVED it.
And better pay attention to me: I picked the AMerican Idol winner TWO years in a row,the only two years I’ve watched and BOTH of them I picked when there were 24 competitors to choose from.
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