Thanks For A Great Three Years Of Blogging

This is the 5,000th post on Red County/OC Blog, so I thought I'd take the occasion to mark the beginning of our fourth year in existence.

OC Blog debuted on June 17, 2004.  Some milestones we have notched in that span of time:

• 5,000 posts

• 35,842 comments

• Lots and lots of page views

When I started this blog, it's audience consisted of a couple of dozen OC politicos who received an e-mail from a mysterious fellow named Jubal inviting them to read his new blog called OC Blog.

Three years later, this blog is read by tens of thousands of unique visitors per month. And since the beginning of the year, three expansion Red County blogs have been launched in Riverside, San Diego and San Bernardino counties.

I started this blog as an experiment, and it has taken on a life and a direction beyond anything I imagined at the time.

OC Blog was always intended to be a group effort, and I want to thank the past and present Blogpen members who have played a critical role in our growth and success, especially our early Blogpenners like Lurk, Silence Dogood, Kahuna, OC Dutch, Roscoe, Publius and Pistolero who were key in building OC Blog's audience and influence.

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore deserves special praise for a) being one of the few members of my ostensibly large Blogpen who actually contributes on a regular basis b) for the fearlessness with which he engages the blogosphere, which is fairly unique among elected officials.

Also, a special thanks to Quang X. Pham for his posts and for shouldering the burden of the News Roundup/Weekend Edition for a few months.

I'd also like to thank Red County founder Tracy Price and Red County president Scott Graves for inviting me aboard, providing the platform to take this enterprise to the next level and for believing in this blog so much that they give me complete freedom to run the blog the way I always have.

Last but not least, a big muchas gracias to our loyal readers and commenters, who make this blog what it is. In one of those fascinating spin-offs typical of blogs, some of our commenters, such as the pseudonymous Bladerunner, have achieved a kind of authoritative status as commentators on and observers of the OC political scene.

When I started this blog, there weren't any political blogs, properly understood, dedicated to OC politics and government (Orange Juice had been on hiatus for a few months after a year of sporadic posting), and a entire crop have sprouted since then. Most, such as Total Buzz, a re-activated Orange Juice, Orange Punch, TheLiberalOC.com, Powder Blue Report, A Bubbling Cauldron, Newport Voices, Tin Star, Greater Orange eBlog, Greetings from Downtown Huntington Beach, Itching Post and Andrew's Wild and Wonderful Blog and now John Wayne County, are still  alive and kicking. Others, like Orange-County Courant (which I lack the heart to remove from the blogroll) and CA-48 Blog have ceased publishing.

And I cannot forget to thank Mrs. Jubal for her patience as I devoted sometime too many hours to "that blog."

So thanks for the heart to all our readers, commenters, contributors and I'm looking forward to what our fourth year brings.

Comments

[Jack Wu]

You've done a great job and have, at times, put me in peril of losing my job. I look forward to many more years. Congrats!

[Phil Paule]

Great Job Matt !!!!!!!!!

When the 5 year celebration rolls around- I suggest a large bash sponsered by the Walt Disney Company.

[Gustavo Arellano]

Congrats, and keep up the hell-raising.

[Kelly Kilpatrick]

Well done! I've been reading this blog now for a couple of months and I always find something interesting.

[Art Pedroza]

Matt,

Congrats. I know how much work this is!

You and I don't always agree, but I do enjoy your site...although it has not been much fun for me today...

Kudos to you and your entire crew.

[O.C.Funk]

You are the man! Mrs. Jubal should be making you buy her some diamond bling for tolerating your constant attention to this blog thing. Of course, when it first started you told her it was just going to be "a hobby", right?

Anyway, thanks for providing a site for dysfunctional political discourse to foment and be exactly what our founding fathers wanted; public discourse.

God bless and keep on hammering away!

O.C. Funk

[Chuck DeVore]

Thanks for the mention. 5,000 posts! The debate has only just started.

All the best,

Chuck DeVore
State Assemblyman, 70th District
www.ChuckDeVore.com

[History Buff]

A little know fact that the fore-runner of both the OC Blog and the FlashReport were run out of State Senator John Lewis District Office on a blind Fax machine by two young staffers who names you might be able to guess.

[Phil Paule]

Come to think of it- if it was not for the OC Blog I would have never met Allan Bartlett- Thanks Matt

[The Pot Stirrer]

Talk about numbers!! Makes me weary just reading them! Congrats to you and the team for a great publication. Thanks, also, for the nod in your piece. We humbly bow in your presence. Keep up the great work.

[Chris Prevatt]

Congratulations Matt.

As always, I enjoy the debate and wish you and your team continued success in the coming years. Well, maybe not too much success. :-)

[Mike Lawson]

Congratulations to the entire OC Blog team!

[Tim Steed]

OC Blog-

The Blog I love to hate...

I echo Chris, good luck. But not too much luck!

Congrats again-
Tim Steed, President
California Young Democrats

[Sergeant]

Matt,

Congratulations on this milestone!

I can appreciate the time and effort it must take to keep it rolling every day, which is no small task, by any means!

You're doing a great job, you've set a high bar for local blogs to achieve and I look forward to reading the blog for many moons to come...

Good work.

[Barrett Tetlow]

Congratulations to Jubal and the cast of OC Blog. You have grown up into a force to be reckoned with in Orange County (and Republican) politics. Your dedication and hard work has paid off. I have watched time and time again as breaking news on OC Blog has forced the powerful and the important to react. Orange County has proved that it is on the cutting down of the conservative movement.

Jubal, look back and remember your friends and supporters in the beginning and celebrate with them on your achievement.

[Quang]

Thanks Matt for allowing this rookie to partake in your forum. I've met some cool people via this blog like Paul Lucas, Allan Barlett and Jimmy Camp who was on a flight with me from SACTO to SNA earlier this week.

[Bladerunner]

Thanks for the props, thanks for being a class act and thanks for providing a great news and opinion service behind the orange Curtain.............

[Andrew Davey]

Congrats, Matt!

Believe it or not, it was a DEMOCRAT who introduced me to OC Blog about 16 months ago. We were both working on Francine Busby's campaign in SD County, yet we both followed OC politics fairly closely (I'm an OC native, he went to CSUF). But anyways, he kept telling me that "OC Blog is the s***!" (that's a compliment) and that he enjoyed reading OC Blog to keep up on what's happening in OC. And from that point on, your site has been part of my blog addiction.

So anyways, congrats on 3 successful years of blogging OC politics from the right. It's nice sometimes to get different perspectives on the news an issues of the day. And despite my occasional harsh words, just know that I'll always keep coming back for more of this site. ; )

[Greater Orange News Service/ Orange Net News]

Congratulations to the OC Blog.
Your leadership in the OC Blogsphere and encouragement, pinoeering and fostering of the OC Blogsphere on all sides of the important issues has made Orange County the leader in public discourse on the Internet and made the internet a leading source of news for those in the know.

The Greater Orange Community Group and it's family of News Services

[Len Kranser]

Congratulations. Don't grow weary of the task. Informing the public is a noble duty.

[killerjoe]

As an Orange County native, I get most local news that counts from the Red Blog. I just don't trust the Register anymore. So keep up the good work. Thanks.

[larry gilbert]

matt.
Let me join those who have commended you on this milestone. Like anything else it takes dedication to coitinue in any endeavor for an extended period of time. To do that without reducing the quality takes a lot of effort. Your challenge is to "keep the bar high."
Best wishes
Larry Gilbert

[Allan Bartlett]

Right back at you Phil. Congrats to OC Blog on another milestone. Political debate in OC hasn't been the same since the advent of blogs(it's a lot better now).

[Claudio Gallegos]

Congratulations Matt. Countless posts have pissed me off, so you must be doing something RIGHT(Pun INtended). You have accomplished much and by the rankings on Blog Net News have helped make the OC political blogosphere the most dominant in the state. Keep up the good work.

Claudio

[Pete Fundy]

As Orange County's leading conservative commentator, Pete Fundy is grateful for OCBlog. If it weren't for you boys, I'd have a hard time remembering just how much money there is in telling people whatever it is that they want to hear. Over and over and over again. Like Hugh Hewitt, for example.

Yes, we OC conservatives have had our setbacks. We lost Steven Greenhut, we regret voting to re-elect Sheriff Mike Carona, and that Tan Nguyen thing was so embarrassing that we wanted to spit.

Okay, okay, everyone knows that losing Greenhut was a blessing. Hey, Pete Fundy was just trying to be nice.

Congratulations, OCBlog! Here's to Chuck DeVore's next 5,000 posts.

Warmly yours,
Pete Fundy
Senior Editorial Writer
OCLegend.Com