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Commonwealth
Conservative:
Chad
Dotson
Chad
Dotson is considered by many observers to be the
top conservative, Republican blogger in Virginia,
with a blog that averages close to 1,500 pages
views per day. The creator of Commonwealth
Conservative, Dotson lays claim to the mantle
of “the Internet’s first elected blogger,”
as he is also the Commonwealth’s Attorney for
Wise County and the City of Norton in Southwestern
Virginia.
A
graduate of the University of Virginia and the
Georgetown University Law Center, Dotson gained a
measure of national notoriety as a finalist for
the “Best Conservative Blog” category for the
2005 Weblog Awards. A father of two children,
Dotson also helped found the Old Dominion Blog
Alliance, a network of conservative and Republican
blogs throughout Virginia.
Q:
How long have you been engaged in political
activity?
CD:
Almost as long as I can remember. Actually, I
really became serious about politics during my
junior year of high school. My grandmother was
sort of a legendary local Republican, so I grew up
with the GOP all around me, but it didn't really
sink in until my late teens. I was much more
interested in sports, frankly.
During
high school, the Clarence Thomas hearings took
place, and I became mesmerized by the process. I
watched every second of the hearings that I could,
and it was about that time that I decided I had to
get involved in politics. I saw that we needed
good people running for office, because important
decisions were made by politicians.
At
UVa, I was chairman of the College Republicans,
which was a good education in political
leadership. After law school, I returned home to
Southwest Virginia, and founded the Wise County
Young Republicans. Shortly thereafter, I was
elected chairman of the Wise County GOP, and the
rest, as they say, is history. Fortunately, my
grandmother, who is really my inspiration in a lot
of ways, lived long enough to see me elected as
Commonwealth's Attorney. It made her very proud.
Q:
You started your blog back in August 2004. Was
there a particular incident or series of factors
that motivated this?
CD:
There were a few things. First, I had become
addicted to reading blogs, especially Steve
Minor's SW
Virginia Law Blog. I had gotten to know Steve
through my law practice before I became a
prosecutor, and he's a funny guy – and
brilliant. At that point, I hadn't found any blogs
which really touched on Virginia politics from a
conservative perspective. There were a few out
there, but other than Ben
Domenech's blog, I hadn't really discovered
them yet. I've always been interested in writing,
and I loved talking about politics, so I decided
to go ahead and give blogging a try.
Unfortunately,
few of my close friends are political junkies like
me (actually, that's probably a good thing), so I
didn't have a lot of people nearby with whom to
discuss Virginia politics. "Commonwealth
Conservative" (CC) was mostly my little
effort to create a General Store-type atmosphere
where people could come in and discuss Virginia
politics -- a fascinating subject -- in a civil
manner.
Q:
Initially you blogged under the pseudonym
"John Behan." For those newer to the
blog world, can you give insight into your
rationale for doing this and then for "coming
out" as yourself?
CD:
As mentioned, I'm an elected Commonwealth's
Attorney, which means I have to run for
re-election soon. When I started the blog, I
wasn't sure if I would do it for a week, or a
month, or indefinitely. On a whim, I decided
to use a pseudonym because I didn't know if I'd
stick with it, and I didn't want it to come back
to haunt me. I picked the name of one of the
characters in "Tombstone," one of my
favorite movies. The real Behan, incidentally, was
a sheriff, and a Democrat.
After
a while, it became obvious that I enjoyed the
blogging process, and the blog was getting
somewhat popular, so having a pseudonym didn't
make any sense any longer. I began telling anyone
that asked. I have to admit, though, when I
started the blog, I never would have imagine that
I would be "outed" in the Washington
Post.
Q:
You are an elected Commonwealth's Attorney. How
does blogging affect your ability to perform your
job? Have you ever been accused of holding certain
biases by defense attorneys related to your blog?
How have your political opponents sought to use
the blog against you?
CD:
Put simply, blogging does not affect my job at
all. I decided early on that I wouldn’t blog
about anything that happened in my office; it's a
political blog, not a law blog. As a matter of
fact, the blog rarely even crosses my mind when
I'm at work. If you walked through my office,
you'd see that we're so busy there is little time
for anything else. Only one defense attorney that
I deal with on a regular basis has ever mentioned
the blog, but only to discuss one of my
sports-related posts. In fact, you may be
surprised to learn that most people within the
Wise County Bar have no idea that I write a blog.
There are even some employees in my own office
that don't know about the blog. I've never
mentioned it to anyone locally, except my wife and
parents. It's not something I advertise, it's
something I do late at night to satisfy my craving
for political discussion.
CC's
"dirty little secret" is that the vast
majority of my posts are written late at night,
after everyone here has gone to bed. WordPress has
a neat little feature that allows you to schedule
when the posts will be published. That way, I
write posts, and I'm able to have fresh content at
the top of the blog throughout the day without
having to actually log in to the system.
As
for my political opponents using the blog against
me, it hasn't happened. Some people on the left
side of the Virginia blogosphere have vowed to
help defeat me in my next election, but I'm not
very concerned about that. I have a great
relationship with the Democrats around here; I
couldn't have been elected without Democratic
support, including winning two precincts that, to
my knowledge, a Republican had never won in a
contested race. In the end, I've tried to be
polite and reasonable on the blog. I don't attack
people like you see around the blogosphere. I've
tried to be as honest as I could, while
remembering that saying something dumb could come
back to haunt me.
Q:
Over the last 2 years, quite a few conservatives
have written for Commonwealth Conservative,
including Norm Leahy, Ben Domenech, and Will
Vehrs. Now, it looks like you are manning the ship
by yourself. Which do you prefer, blogging solo or
as a team?
CD:
I prefer blogging alone, I suppose, but I also
like to have other perspectives at times. Norm has
been great to step in occasionally, which I love
because he's my favorite writer in the Virginia
blogosphere. Will is a special case. Will is
a legend in the Virginia blogosphere, really the
Godfather of our blogging community in many ways.
He's also a superb writer. At some point after
last year's election, I was feeling a little
burned out. I offered Will a permanent spot at CC,
which he declined at the time. Fortunately, he
later changed his mind, the offer was certainly
still on the table, and I eagerly signed him up
like a power-hitting free agent.
I
was too busy to devote time to the blog like I
wanted, so it helped me to have Will around as a
contributor. He was outstanding, and I wish
he had never felt forced to leave. If he wanted to
come back tomorrow, I'd take him in an instant,
but I'm not holding my breath expecting that to
happen.
Anyway,
everyone who has blogged with me at CC will tell
you that I have never put any limits on what they
could say (other than it needed to be
profanity-free). I've enjoyed hearing those
different voices, and CC is often more
entertaining to read when they're around, but I
started CC alone and I guess I'll end it alone,
one of these days. All in all, I prefer the solo
route, but I don't have as much time as is
required most days, and having another voice makes
CC that much more interesting. I like both ways.
Q:
Wise County is not among the first places one
thinks of in terms of leading edge Internet action
and activism. How did a guy from Southwest
Virginia become such a major figure in the
tech-savvy world of political blogging?
Dumb
luck? Actually, I think I came along at just the
right time. Commonwealth Conservative started
growing as last year's gubernatorial race got
started, and, if nothing else, CC gained a bit of
an early reputation for being more civil than many
other blogs. Also, I always tried to make it as
well-written as possible, and I think you gain
credibility that way. I have always hated
typos and spelling errors with an almost
irrational passion (ask my employees), so I wanted
CC to be easy on the eyes in that way.
Also,
I have always tried to link to as many Virginia
blogs as possible. If another blogger had a good
post, I wanted my readers to see it. I think
that helped to increase the visibility of my blog,
because bloggers are nothing if not vain. Bloggers
enjoy getting linked to, and they always want to
return the favor, if possible. So, in the process
of trying to boost the Virginia blogosphere, I
guess it raised my profile, too.
It's
never been about competition with other blogs to
me. I don't care how many hits I get; I'm doing
this because I enjoy it. I never had the goal to
be the biggest conservative blog in Virginia. If I
can help promote the Virginia blogosphere, I want
to do it. I don't believe CC's popularity is any
testament to my writing ability; I just happened
to come along at a time that the Virginia
blogosphere was ready to explode. I got in on the
initial wave. I guess Mark Warner's Internet
adviser would say that the stars were lined up
perfectly. One other point: I think the fact that
I live in a very rural community says a lot about
the power of the internet and the blogosphere.
Thousands of politically-active Virginians read
what I write every week. How could that have
happened before the last few years?
Q:
Given your raised profile beyond blogging and your
current elected position, will 2009 bring a
"Chad Dotson for Attorney General"
candidacy?
CD:
Well, 2009 is pretty far in the distance. I can,
however, envision a "Re-Elect Chad
Dotson" campaign for Wise County/City of
Norton Commonwealth's Attorney in 2007! I'm
focused on that, because if I don't earn
re-election, everything else is moot. And I love
being Commonwealth's Attorney, so I look forward
to asking the voters for another term.
Q:
Scanning the Virginia scene, it appears that
Democratic or left-leaning blogs out-number
Republican or right-leaning ones. What do you feel
contributes to this?
CD:
It's a good question, and it's one for which I'm
not sure I have a ready answer. Perhaps it's
because the Democrats have been out of power in
Virginia, mostly, for the last few cycles. I know
it seems that the GOP has always been more
effective in organization and grass-roots activity
when they were in the minority. I am not, however,
disappointed with the right side of the Virginia
blogosphere. From One Man's Trash to Bearing Drift
to Virginia Virtucon and Shaun Kenney, there are a
number of high-quality conservative Virginia
bloggers out there. I'll put the top tier of
the right-leaning Virginia blogs up against the
lefties any day of the week.
Q:
The Will Vehrs situation gripped the blog world
for weeks. How big of a loss was that to
Commonwealth Conservative?
CD:
It was a huge loss. Will is very talented,
and I'm still angry about the way he was treated
during that whole mess. He was treated extremely
unfairly, and I won't forget that. I haven't even
been able to bring myself to remove his name and
bio from CC. I hope Will Vehrs returns to the
blogosphere soon. This community is less
interesting in his absence.
Q:
Are there any particular bloggers or blog watchers
who you feel were instrumental in the development
of your site?
I
was certainly influenced by Steve Minor, as I
mentioned before. I have to admit that Glenn
Reynolds, of Instapundit fame, was someone who I
read early on, and I may have tried to mirror his
style in some small way. It's hard to single out
people who had an impact. I read a lot of blogs
before I started blogging myself, and I'm sure I
was influenced by all of them. In the end, though,
I sort of just stumbled into a style of my own.
Q:
Lately, there has been a lot of talk about the
need for a "code of ethics" or some
baseline self-policing standards for political
bloggers. What is your view on this?
I
think it's a fine, well-intentioned concept that,
in practice, will never fly in the blogosphere.
This is still the Wild West, and most bloggers
will ignore any code of ethics that is developed,
rendering it almost meaningless. That doesn't
mean, however, that the blogosphere doesn't
already do a decent job of weeding out bloggers
who don't self-police themselves. Readers will
stay away, for the most part, from unethical
bloggers (though there are possibly a couple of
notable exceptions in the Virginia blogosphere).
The most respected bloggers are the ones who
remember "The Virginia Way."
Q:
In your view, what does the future hold for
Virginia's political bloggers?
CD:
I'm a big fan of the political blogosphere in
Virginia. It's a very well-developed community,
and I hope we continue to see its growth. I have
said many times on my blog that I envision a large
number of smaller blogs all across the
Commonwealth. I want to see blogs devoted to, for
example, Lee County politics. I want a local
blogger covering the Board of Supervisors meeting
in Goochland County. I'd love to see blogs devoted
to these areas where newspapers just cannot
provide in-depth coverage, for whatever reason. Citizen-journalists,
I guess. The readership may not be high for
these blogs, but they could have a big impact in
their region.
On
a grander scale, our statewide politicians have
discovered the power of the Virginia blogosphere.
Bloggers will continue to be courted by candidates
and campaigns. Virginia blogs will continue to
influence the power-brokers in Commonwealth
politics. I don't see blogs moving a lot of
actual votes, but they will continue to move
activists. Certain blogs will come and blogs will
go (CC won't be around forever, I'm sure; a week
doesn't go by without me thinking about shutting
the blog down and getting more sleep at night),
but "online media" is here to stay.
A
year or two from now, whether it's Commonwealth
Conservative or another blog that hasn't even
started yet, the conservative movement in Virginia
will have a strong voice in the Virginia
blogosphere -- and hence, in statewide politics --
for the foreseeable future. And who knows? Maybe
we'll even see more elected bloggers in the
Commonwealth.
--
August 7, 2006
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