This is a follow-up to my earlier post published today on the state of the conservative movement in the United States, and the internal debate in this movement about its future direction.

Patrick Ruffini and others have argued that conservative bloggers should learn from their progressive peers. They should, Ruffini believes, become fundraisers, select individual Republican candidates they consider conservative, build a grass roots network and, of course, start to challenge Democrats in their own homes (meaning: recruiting Republicans in a ‘Democratic’ areas, states, etc.).

As Ruffini noted in one of his posts, he may be right that blogs could become more active in that regard, and successfully influence elections, but it could very well require new blogs to do so, for the old ones are more about opining than activism.

Another conservative blogger, Dan Riehl, then complained that he did not quite see why he would have to donate money, and ask readers to donate money, to candidates he does not deem ‘conservative.’ Ruffini countered that point by explaining that progressive bloggers and activists sometimes take on the Democratic Party, when they believe it is not acting progressive enough. Conservative bloggers and activists, Ruffini said, should do the same.

James Joyner, who runs the highly successful and respectable Outside the Beltway, also weighed in making clear that he considers his role to be similar to that of a pundit, who is independent, always intellectually ‘honest,’ and not owned by anyone. Rick Moran agreed.

Ruffini responded to those reactions by arguing that it was perfectly alright for some conservative bloggers to consider them “new-age George Wills,” but that they should not “talk down the necessity of political action or pretend that punditry is the only way. Conservatism had a well-developed pundit class before bloggers came along. It is our activist class that is wanting.”

Ruffini is correct in saying that Amcons need to create blogs solely focused on activism. These blogs will have to be funded by either big, rich conservative organizations, individuals or the Republican Party itself, or all. But Moran and Joyner are also correct in saying that “new-age” pundit, blogger-style, have tremendous value as well. If all (major and influential) conservative bloggers would suddenly stop writing about politics as they do, or spend significantly less time doing so and focus on ‘activism’ instead, a tremendous loophole will come to exist, in which progressive bloggers will dominate the debate.

If Amcons want to become successful and beat progressives at their own game, they will have to take them on in every area.

This also means the following, which is ignored thus far:

1. You need sites that opine and report the news from a conservative or moderate (conservative) perspective. These news sites have to become big, for they need to be read by people who are not conservative (or moderate) as well. Except for the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, most other main sources of news are ran by progressives, and it shows. This means that they all will have to encourage such sites, link to them, etc. Conservatives (this also goes for the Netherlands and the rest of Europe except for Britain where conservatives are pretty prominent in the media) have to practice journalism.

2. Conservatives have to focus on taking over universities. This is the domain of progressives, whether you’re in America or Europe, it’s all the same; 90% of those working at universities and educating, thereby influencing, future generations of scientists, scholars, researchers, etc. are progressive. You can only counter that in one way: offering students an alternative. More conservatives should go work in education.

3. As a Dutchman I’m increasingly under the impression that Western (moderate) conservatives could and should learn from each other. We have more in common than many seem to think. Progressives have been working with each other for years, decades even, as can be seen in the fact that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown reached out to the Obama campaign earlier this year, which could very well result in some Obama staffers traveling to London in 2010 in order to help Brown’s / Labor’s campaign. Conservatives should do the same in so far that they can create international networks, think tanks, and work with each other on domestic and international issues. In the end, conservative governments in Europe are more supportive of a conservative White House and vice versa, for they have more in common with each other than with progressives.

These two aspects (the third is an extra) of building a successful ‘movement’ are missing right now. If you want to be successful, however, you cannot allow yourself to ignore them much longer.