[SauronOfMordor]

Wrong. FR has ALWAYS been marginalized. It is too grass roots for the RNC, a Tory elitist, financialists, hereditary organization that at it best disdains working class conservatives in the millions, small business in the hundred of thousands with their petty gripes.

To some extent, the set of conservative sites on the Net can serve as a "shadow RNC", and to an extent supplant it (which has the elites worried).

What is the RNC at its essence? It is an organization which sets the tone of what the Republican party as a whole should be, and enforces its position by its ability to grant or withhold support, recognition, and soft money funding to individual candidates

Well, what is FR doing? We let people know about the strengths and weaknesses of candidates, and allow people to make informed judgments on who to send their money to. The net result is to diminish the power of the RNC (and the elites that control it) over the party. If a candidate, detested by the elites for his positions, can secure campaign funding without support from the elites, then that strips the elites of power.

The solution to elite control is to never send money to the RNC. Always send money to individual candidates that you admire. And mention in the letter that you made your decision to send money from what you heard about them on FR

[Leisler]

I agree. Since maybe WWI we have had a centralizing, top down trend, under the influence of various elitists and modeled on old, corporations. But as you pointed out the cost drop due to the Internet has weakened the power of centralized gate keepers. So, for any movement, left or right, their gatekeepers have a personal disdain for what is going on. Remember how Dean within the Democrat establisment was disliked and feared with his netroots/Dean meet up approach? Trent Lott, Pelousey, would like to go back to their old pals in the MSM.