It was a very busy month here.
Traffic was up, with almost the highest number of visits I’ve ever had in a month (560k) and the highest page views ever (848k).
I haven’t counted comments by month, but at some point during January we went from the usual 10-20 comments per post to 50-100 (and sometimes more) per post. So that means people are engaged. Mostly the dialogue has been civil. I hope readers will keep it that way, as one of my concerns is that the comment section here not turn into the trash-talking endless-circling that takes place elsewhere.
The Tip Line has proven to be very valuable to me. So thanks for the tips.
Significantly, we were able to push back on some issues and change the national dialogue a tiny bit.
Now you have heard of Mia B. Love, as have hundreds of thousands of people around the country. The video posted here before any other blog now has over 56,000 views.
The Nancy Reagan video which ended up being discussed at the debates and on the national talk shows in defense of the smears against Newt also started here.
We also brought Allen West’s redistricting problems to national attention before anyone else. Fortunately, those problems appear to have been resolved.
I was one of the only people who consistently spoke out against the attempt to silence criticism of Bain by claiming that an attack on Bain’s business model was an attack on capitalism. Although Bain now is off the table in the primaries, I will be proven right on this.
Standing against the outrageous conduct of Drudge, some other elements in the conservative media, and the Romney negative ad machine, has been at times an exercise in futility. We’re barely a blip on the radar, but it beats not being a blip at all.
Anyone who thinks this effort is about Newt is wrong. Fundamentally and profoundly wrong.
I’m glad there is a period of relative quiet so that bloggers can catch their collective breaths, even if the candidates march on. I don’t know how candidates do it, I really don’t.
Thanks for reading.
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Comments
I feel sane upon finding Prof. Jacobson agreeing with me. Ha. Thanks for your wonderful work.
Professor, while you’ve made it clear that you support Newt, you have done so without denigrating any of the candidates personally (certainly, you may criticize their words or policies). One of the reasons I read you daily is because you make very reasonable judgements and are not afraid to express your views. I do not agree with everything you say (I’m still on the fence between Newt and Santorum, not that it seems to make a difference – at least not in Illinois, where I live), but you often give me reason to reconsider my own views, even if they remain the same.
I, and many of here, thank you for that.
I appreciate the hard work that goes into this blog. It has become my first, every time, blog that I check, in place of another that has recently become overloaded with vituperation.
Likewise.
Also likewise.
Your blog seems a refuge of sanity these days, Professor, and I appreciate that.
A-L-L-E-N ! ! !
Oh, and thanks for proofreading!
i dont know how you do it but i thank you for it. i thought aout blogging myself. one neds to have at least four or five posts with something insightful and original to say. additionally one would have to scour the internet for videos and articles to write about.i could never do that even if ididnt work yet you do it everyday. it must be a law prof thing. thanks agan.
Not much in the way of liberals here, so its pretty civil
No one should be surprised at the significant bump in traffic.
The professor puts out a quality product.
Build a better mousetrap…
Good for you, sir. You certainly deserve it.
Well, if the law professor thing doesn’t work out, you’d make a great cat herder.
Excellent blog, and the best set of regulars on the intertoobs.
Thank you Professor. Your blog is one of my first stops every morning and throughout the day.
Readers: Hit the subscribe button. The $5.00/month (or more) will do your heart good. =]
Thanks for the nudge, Listkeeper. Donation on the way.
Just renewed my WSJ subscription. If I can afford that I have no good excuse for not contributing more here – thanks for the reminder.
Thank you. For me, you are providing the opposite of a political vacuum. On a state level, I could not understand why state representatives were supporting Romney (quietly) after national pushback on Obamacare. I’m winding my way toward being able to talk to my state rep office on why I think their position is completely naive, uniformed and unvetted. (What do they know about Massachusetts health care reform?). I want to make sure we have representative government that informs themselves, like the citizens deserve and do, and just doesn’t inform themselves by polls.
I see huge red flags that the Dems want to run against Romney, after all they are choosing to run against the 1%. Pelosi may feign like she has something on Newt…but I don’t see Dem’s setting the table to run against areas where he may be a poster child, or Santorum, or Paul.
“Anyone who thinks this effort is about Newt is wrong. Fundamentally and profoundly wrong.”
That’s so fundamentally and profoundly Newtonian.
I find myself using “fundamentally” more and more often, which historically was not the case.
Congrats to my favorite blip….rock on Professor!
I think you have set a high standard for discourse, and I hugely appreciate it! Not to mention your sense of humor 🙂
I hope someday that Drudge winds up having to link to YOU.
Q to all: are there other blogs or sites with a similar high quality of discourse? Especially on the left?
Right Scoop seems pretty sane and rational as well as Newsmax.
Thank you Professor!! You’ve been a voice of clarity, reason, fairness, and honesty for a long time. This is one of my favorite blogs. Keep up the good work!!
Professor Jacobson,
You have a way of growing on people. You are not flashy or bombastic, but, rather, are principled, reasonable, and have a sense of humor. That is what the world needs.
Yours is the first (of many) blogs I read daily and I commend your work.
Thanks for all of your work, Professor. I love Legal Insurrection, and I love the commenters as well.
You da best!
Prof. Jacobson’s blogging style, by the way, is a wonder- amazingly concise but personal, formal but warm. A model for public discourse & rhetorical style in the internet age.
LI has been on my blog list for over a two years and in the past two months it’s now my number one choice for political news and reasoned debate. How nice to see your numbers increasing. It couldn’t have happened to a better blog.
First off, thank you keeping this blog going as it is. I especially like the concentration on politics, at least for this critical year, with the frequent short break onto other non-essential topics, well bumper stickers aren’t non-essential, rather more representative of a state of mind or of nothing at all.
Also, I get the idea that you at least read most of the comments and that’s great and much appreciated too.
Instapundit and Althouse are two other great lawyer blogs yet your blog for now seems to be focused tightly on our country’s great issue and on values important to how we go about being the country envisioned by the founders. So, those other two blogs are now for me less interesting till the political issues are resolved.
Cheers, good on ye matey, and keep that caisson rolling along.
Second…!!!!
Althouse WAS a good blog.
Since she got big (hint..hint), she felt the need to unleash the Banhammer
Once unleashed, the Banhammer never sleeps
Her criteria? Comments made in bad faith i.e.; not understanding what the good professor is thinking…in a one sentence blog post..with the link being “this”..followed by “Do you see what I mean?”
..ask a simple question…comment deleted to “reset the thread” because it wasn’t “going in the right direction”.
OK–Probably not the right forum, but as you can tell it’s still stuck in my craw.
Anywho, I ran into an old fishing buddy today–haven’t talked in a while…says “Illegal Insurrection is about the last real conservative blog out there…spot on.”
(Yea, I’ll probably regret posting this..but-here goes…)
Thank you for your tireless efforts , you are a true Patriot. I deeply admire your courage in publicly posting your conservative views, it must certainly raise the ire of many of your fellow academia’s. L.I. is one of my favorite blogs, I deeply appreciate your logical, calm and thoughtful posts. I think you must be one heck of a lawyer as well! Well done, professor.
The truth is to be found here – Thank you Professor – this is my favorite site – hope you get 2 million visits next month!
Thank you, Professor, for this place to discuss and consider this most important election.
My erstwhile two favorite blogs, Power Line and InstaPundit, like so many others I thought would eagerly embrace the new paradigm Newt is proposing, have failed to understand what, to me, seems so obvious, and also so welcome and exciting.
That they don’t support Newt is not what I object to. It’s that they don’t understand what Newt is proposing.
What Newt is proposing is that the American People be given a chance to correct the Leftist course we’re on. That deserves respect, even if you choose not to support Newt.
So I agree with you: it’s not about Newt. I think Newt agrees with that. It’s about our country and the future of those to come. It’s not about Newt, but Newt gets what it IS about.
So I am for, and with, Newt.
And it’s not conservative versus liberal, either, exactly. Ronald Reagan said: it’s not “right” or “left”; it’s up or down: more freedom or less freedom.
This is a new paradigm. Something radically new is being proposed. Also radically old, if 1776 is old. As was said early today by Midwest Rhino, “the Founders’ ideas are still new.”
Professor Jacobson, thank you for providing this forum, and your posts and commentary.
And thank you for endorsing Newt early.
There are 46 states to go, and we have to go through this if we are to prevail and then work together to restore our country that we love.
I found this link from someone at The Right Scoop:
Drudge decoded:
http://yfrog.com/h4u6srp
As always, thank you for all the effort you put into one of the best blogs on the web! I cannot comment nearly as often as I would like, but LI has become one of the first two sites I hit every day. The comment sections are constantly full of good discussion as well.
A time for breath catching is certainly needed after the whirlwind of January, but with that behind us and a brief time now to look ahead, I cannot begin to imagine what October and November will bring.
Keep on being a “blip.” Your effort is greatly appreciated and LI has become my “go to first blog” for news each and every day, and for updates throughout the day. You do your best to address the issues fairly, and succeed. Thanks. I have a feeling you will be instrumental in keeping many of us here sane over the months leading up to the election.
Thank you for being so classy in your blog. I never comment on these things, but I feel your blog is worth reading and signing up for. I am just a nobody from middle America, but I am so sick of the media, these stupid GOP primaries, and all the ugliness they bring. All that we hear is so disheartening. Truly, I believe this country is going off the edge of the cliff. While I wait for the other shoe to drop, I will read your blog and take heart.
thank you sir for a sane, rational place to blog. Much appreciated.
Coming in late, I see that everything I wanted to say was already said. Dittos. Without question, best on the internet.
I am new here, and most certainly not as eloquent as the rest of you, but I just wanted to add my thanks as well.
Finally..a sane place to learn.
Finally..a sane place to learn.
Isn’t that what everyone…anywhere…ever wants..NEEDS?
Once commonplace….now a rarity.
Congratulations on your success! It is well-deserved. Thank you for providing a place for thoughtful conservatives to hang out.
Further-
A sane place to learn..
Would look good under your mast, Professor.
To the Toppermost of the Bloggerposts, Willie!!
Warning: John Lennon uses the F-word once.
LukeHandCool (who will now return to the proper salutation of “Professor.”)
Glad I found this blog. The assault by Fox and the GOP bigwigs on the “non-Romneys” has pretty much crushed me. Glad I found a rational outlet for information and analysis.
No worries.
“Conservatism”…the name they assign to what we believe are basic, natural principles.
Rational. Logical.
Bestowed in our hearts by The Almighty, sanctioned by the Constitution..
Shall never reside in one man, one cable channel, one politician, one blog.
Freedom, Liberty, reside in the human heart–
That, being a form of government, was a blessing the world has never seen-
Our government taking that away, is something we’ve never seen.
I suspect it won’t go without a fight.
I have been having quite some fun.
This is why I’ve made your site a daily read.
If I recall correctly, Ann Coulter is friends with Drudge – and Bill Maher.
Thanks for writing. And Congratulations! Keep up the good work.