So we tried to see if we could make a fiscal go of it, as Justin has explained, but now we’re scaling back a bit at Anchor Rising. (Some of us–me–got an early start with a particularly busy summah). Over the last few months, we’ve all have found it harder to do our duty and put up regular posts, as we’ve felt obligated to do since we started taking sponsors (as Justin touched upon with Matt Allen last night), while also waiting for some group or individual to step forward and help us fund a full-time position. We thought it was worth a shot.
Obviously, we share the same ideological touchstone as many conservatives, libertarians and even some of those “traditional” Rhode Island Democrats and Independents. But that doesn’t, or hasn’t, translated into funding to help us take Anchor Rising to another level. It appears, to me at least, that an established “brand” like Anchor Rising isn’t attractive for funding because our voice isn’t likely to be shaped or altered depending on who is supplying the coin. Let’s face it, ideology or philosophy aside, we think what we think and we post it. There are little battles amongst the ranks of political movements and we tend not to take sides in those. But we’ll sure as hell tell you if we think you’re wrong, even if we agree with you on most other things. A lot of people—groups or investors—can’t handle that, especially if they’re giving you money. And I can’t say that I really fault anyone for that attitude. It’s their money.
After Justin’s post on Monday, long-time new media “friend of the blog” Ian Donnis noted it and highlighted a statement I made about blogging in an interview that Justin, Andrew and I had with Ian (while he was at the Phoenix) in 2008:

“You have to do it because you love doing it for its own sake. Lots of blogs flame out. People get bored or realize how hard it is. But I think that so long as you are passionate about something — whether politics, music, food or whatever — you will be able to keep it going. Just don’t ever look at it as a way to make money or gain power.”

I guess I was right, but it was worth a try. While it is a “scaling back”, I prefer to think of it as charting a new course. Still on the journey, just going a different way (in a smaller boat!).
All that aside, I like to think we’ve helped inform and coalesce Rhode Islanders over the last few years; that we’ve helped them realize that things don’t have to be as they are just because “this is Rhode Island.” For the nearly 7 years we’ve been going at it, we’ve seen other conservative groups—some of them sponsors–come and go. We were here before OSPRI and their Transparency Train. We were here before RISC changed their “S” from “Shoreline” to “Statewide”. We were here before the Tea Partiers and we started before Matt Allen got his own show. Some have exited from the scene or become less or more influential. Some have changed direction and some continue on. We’ll continue on, too (if not as prolifically!).
After all this time, we and our commenters and our readers have become a sort of big family: full of conservative and liberal brothers and sisters (and a few libertarian middle children) and more than our fair share of spaced out cousins and just plain crazy old uncles (you know who you are). We’ll still be here to offer a conservative perspective and our comments section will remain as our own “lively experiment” by providing you with a forum to agree or argue (and yes, to flame or troll–again, you know who you are!).
But enough of that. Let’s continue sailing on.