Tuesday, March 17, 2009

I Know Robert Stacy McCain and You Sir, Are No Robert Stacy McCain

Stacy McCain has a popular blog called "The Other McCain." He's a good conservative, great writer, has an excellent sense of humor. Stacy has drawn a lot of attention from the blogosphere by writing an article entitled "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog." He passed the one million mark on February 15 and decided to share his secrets with the rest of us.

A lot of what he says is obvious on how to get a lot of hits. Run some cheesecake once in a while. Okay. Seek links from big bloggers who can send a lot of traffic your way. And so forth.

The truth is, I love to see my blog hits grow, and this week they have been growing, with each day better than the one before. Even so, at this rate it will take me nine years to pass a million hits. The fact is, I don't want to be a shameless blog whore. It's hard enough just being a regular shameless whore. I write for fun, to vent and to share. I don't even use advertising on my blog, though I may start at some future date. If you are selling advertising, then it really matters how many hits you get, because the number of hits determines the amount of money you make.

I have known Stacy for more than a decade. We were in the Southern Heritage movement together a decade ago. Stacy, Mike Tuggle, I and some other people wanted to give a painting by a Chinese artist to an American Olympic gymnist of Chinese extraction. Stacy sent me the painting and I delivered it to the gymnist, and her crew filmed the presentation. Stacy was actually in the painting, which depicted a group of Confederate soldiers witnessing an immersion style baptism in a river during the Civil War. Stacy had posed in a borrowed uniform as one of the soldiers. He looked quite cool in a butternut jacket and slouch hat.

We were really proud of ourselves for organizing and carrying off that cultural project. Were we smart or what? We were.

At that time, Stacy was a reporter for a local newspaper in the South, but soon moved up to be a reporter for the Washington Times. After he wrote a few articles about communist influences and goals, I knew we really were kindred spirits. He understood the motivations of the Left in the same way I did. Since then his star has continued to rise among conservative writers and bloggers.

Stacy has been fighting the good fight for years, for conservatism and against the Left. He's been an inspiration to me for more than a decade. I wish him well and I hope he continues to write serious articles in addition to the fun stuff at his blog.

As for me...I will continue to write about things that interest me, scare me and piss me off. I don't if that will be enough to get a million hits in less than a year, but for now that's all I really want to do.

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