I'm going to take a few minutes I don't have to write about @RedState and more particularly, @CalebHowe. Caleb is a Hell of an asset for anyone, and I'm proud to call him a friend, even if his fashion sense is even worse than mine.
I started at RedState when RedState started. We had a ... somewhat schizophrenic model in terms of writers and readers.
Our writer stable was composed of basically HERE ARE ALL THE RIGHT-OF-CENTER BLOGGERS AND ALSO SOME PEOPLE WHO AREN'T HOW DID THEY GET INVITED OH WELL.
This narrowed quickly.
RedState was not -- as is frequently believed, much to Erick's chagrin -- founded by @EWErickson. @bdomenech, @krempasky, and Josh Trevino (one of social media's great losses) launched it with their own sweat and capital, and made it greater by bringing on Erick.
Our readers were ... excitable ... lefties and righties who got ... more excitable ... with the comment and diary system we had at the time. It had a lot to recommend it! Some of our best, longest-tenured writers came out of those sections, e.g., @streiffredstate and @presjpolk.
And Caleb.
Caleb is one of those guys who kind of sneaks up on you, and not just when he's about to sucker punch you. The longer you know him, the more talents you discover he has.
Caleb is one of those guys who kind of sneaks up on you, and not just when he's about to sucker punch you. The longer you know him, the more talents you discover he has.
Caleb was willing to walk into scrums from which most of us would pull back just to get the story, the different angle, the photo, the arrest record. He'd write those mobs up as if he'd lived there, which caused some of us to worry about him a bit.
Despite how he SOMETIMES looks, he's always aware of what's going on, which is part of how he got audio of Fritz Hollings sounding dumb on a flight in 2008, or how he always knew where something big was about to happen.
And he got better over time, and I don't just mean fewer known sightings of that three-wolf-moon shirt.
What should by all rights impress anyone is that Caleb doesn't flinch from taking on more responsibility and steps up every time he does. He ran RedState after Erick and then @LeonHWolf departed in short order, and made the thing move.
I am not privy to anything internal about how the site runs or ran, but I will say this now: Salem was always clearly incompetent to run RedState, and it shows.
It's one thing to run a site like HotAir, where they get lots of clicks and don't move any conversations or policy. RedState was always about moving the policy needle, about giving activists a place to talk and plan and organize and hash out ideas.
It's not that Eagle was any good at it; it's that Salem is worse. If you're not generating clicks, you're not part of their understanding of the universe. RedState wasn't a clickbait site; it was a place to hash out policy and ideas, and it got read where it mattered.
And Caleb -- who is passionate about ideas -- survived in that environment and still made RedState a place where people could come praise the Dorito Lord or hate on him.
This is not a trivial talent.
This is not a trivial talent.
My voice doesn't count for much, and I haven't officially been at RedState in a decade and change. But I'll say this now: If you want someone who can do basically anything, and you are in media, @CalebHowe 's your man.
