Can Massachusetts’s newest conservative blog become a political sensation like liberal fave Blue Mass. Group? If shameless imitation has anything to do with it, absolutely!In terms of presentation, Red Mass Group — which debuted on February 17, with a post on the $72,000 scheduler recently hired for Governor Deval Patrick’s wife, Diane — does almost nothing original. Sure, omitting the period after “Mass” was a bold step, but the name is still completely derivative. So’s the iconography: BMG has a map of the state at the top of the page, and voila! so does RMG. (The conservatives get some credit for highlighting Republican-leaning counties in red, but not much.) Finally, RMG’s motto is a JV rip-off: “News & commentary about Massachusetts and beyond” versus “Reality-based commentary on politics and policy in Massachusetts and around the nation.”
So how’s it playing on the right? Early signs were not encouraging. The comment total dropped steadily over the first few days: the $72,000-scheduler story got six posts, a WRKO-focused kvetch got five, an item accusing Patrick of being soft on illegal immigrants got three, and the next two posts — one on conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt’s forthcoming Mitt Romney book, one on Romney’s first TV ad — got goose-egged. (Bad omens there, Mitt.)
Now, however, RMG seems to be off life support, with the last three posts pulling in a respectable nine comments. As for the liberals at BMG, they don’t seem overly worried that their online pre-eminence might be challenged. “I thought the name referred to a specialized dermatology practice,” quipped one. Later, a BMG editor revealed that the RMG crowd had asked for permission to ape the BMG name, and added some vaguely patronizing praise: “Nice of them to ask, in my opinion.”
The prediction here is that RMG will peter out in a couple of months. But I could be wrong. After all, Patrick is providing plenty of fodder so far — and really, anything is better than HubPolitics.com.
