Free speech: better for Republicans or Democrats?

Ramesh Ponnuru over at The Corner offers this conversation-starter:

Republicans are leading a charge to subject "527 groups" to onerous regulations. A minority of them, again, have sincere and above-board reasons for doing this. Most of them just want to shut down groups that are trying to beat them in elections. For a majority to restrict the freedom of others to try to boot them out is pretty much a textbook definition of the abuse of power, isn't it?

I agree that this is a very transparent political move by the ‘Pubs. McCain-Feingold, the legislation that brought us new government restrictions on political speech, was already a problem ideologically for me and many others.

Republicans should be fighting the growth and power of government, especially in the area of speech. Using government as a cudgel against one’s opponents is an affront to real conservatives and a very bad precedent.

But let’s look at this strategically. Who benefits more from freer speech, left or right? I would argue (and I am certainly not the first to do so) that Republicans have benefited more from new communications media, from talk radio in the 90’s to the blogosphere today. Ideology aside, Republicans should be fighting new speech restrictions because free speech works to their favor.

How is this? Michael Barone has opined:

So what hath the blogosphere wrought? The left blogosphere has moved the Democrats off to the left, and the right blogosphere has undermined the credibility of the Republicans' adversaries in Old Media. Both changes help Bush and the Republicans.

The mainstream media, including most of the leading newspapers and broadcast networks, skew liberal in their staffing and coverage, and have done so consistently for 30+ years. (I think this is clearly evident and studies tend to support my observations.)

The new media — blogs and talk radio — provide direct competition for traditional media, and are thus competing with a traditionally liberal message.

Left-of-center blogs have seen substantial success, but are not a “new” medium for their audience, as the MSM have been a liberal message machine for a long time. In other words, the message and the audience of lefty blogs largely overlaps with the traditional MSM. Since their “market share” of ideas was already large, each new entrant provides only an incremental gain.

Meanwhile, right-of-center blogs reach an audience that the MSM largely hasn’t touched. The outlet is new, as there was very little in the way of right-leaning media prior. The net gain is substantial.

Let’s say that there are 100 players in traditional media, and that 75 lean liberal and 25 lean conservative.

Let’s then suppose that there are 10 new entrants into the field, evenly distributed, 5 liberal and 5 conservative. These new entrants represent a 7% increase in the number of liberal outlets, but a 20% increase in conservative outlets. Simply by being in a historical minority, new conservative voices represent a larger incremental gain.

Simply put: the market for liberal media is largely saturated, while the market for conservative media is one of growth.

Getting back to my original premise: Republicans should be removing as many barriers as possible when it comes to political speech. Adding new restrictions is abhorrent ideologically (and constitutionally), and in direct opposition to conservative first principles.

My strategic message to Republicans: the growth market is yours. Please, instead of building upon the restrictions of McCain-Feingold, do yourselves and your country a favor by working to diminish them.

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Update: Byron York goes a lot further with the details and how the parties are approaching it. Up is down.

Comments

[The Gentle Cricket]

I like the new format. Looks great.

The blogosphere and talk radio are incredible advances for Republicans. Not only do they provide an alternate source of information and ideas, they are able to hold the MSM to accountability. Consider Rathergate; none of the MSM would have broken that story. It took a blogger (LGF) to do so.

I would be interested in seeing those 527 groups.

[TwoHands88Keys]

It's still better than the "free speech" the left offers, which is "if it supports us, say it; if not, it's hateful and wrong". Oops. I just said something that was hateful and wrong.

[bridesmaiddresses]

While you want your maid of honor and bridesmaids to look beautiful at the wedding, you also want to keep their monetary obligation to a minimum.