The Epic Tome on Circle of Moms… the Why to your Wonder
So many people are asking…. “Where did Mommentator’s blog go? I thought she won?” Here is a post dedicated to detailing what happened in the Circle of Moms contest. It will answer your questions and leave you with new ones. If you aren’t prepared for the ride… don’t read.
So, in order to keep you from reading a boring story, and because I have better things to do, I will try to condense this as much as possible. I don’t mean to gloss over details, but this has been dragging on for some time. I’m ready to explain it and move on. Good?
So, a few weeks ago, I received an email from “Catherine” with Circle of Moms, who is listed as the Marketing Manager on their website. I’d been added to their site as a Top Political Mom Blog and if I engage my followers for daily votes, I might be able to be listed in the top. While it occurs to me that all signs point to a desperate cry for traffic, I think it’s fun. And, certainly, these things do have consequences. Many of my paying jobs have come from such contests, so in the end, aren’t they really mutually beneficial?
I began to promote the contest and votes for me in general. Admittedly, on the first day, I was involved in a conversation where I posted some negative commentary about The Feminist Breeder, and the name of her blog. I have opinions… thus, the fact that I regularly air them without regard for who it offends. This particular contest requires that all bloggers pursue the ethics in the “Blog with Integrity” creed and I was sent an email from Catherine stating that I had violated their “no knocks” policy. At the time, she provided me screen shots of my commentary. I said, “good to know” and moved on. In some ways, I don’t apologize for what I said, because, it’s how I feel about it and during the course of the contest, many of my followers think the same thing and said so…that the name “Feminist Breeder” is offensive and it makes them uncomfortable. In other ways, I can see why the blog community wants to keep things easy and breezy…. My suggestion would be that they stay out of politics. In my world, I wasn’t calling the woman a name. I just didn’t enjoy the use of her terminology for her blog. And I certainly don’t have any names to call the woman now. Though, the names went back and forth. As it is in politics… gain a thicker skin if you don’t like it, or don’t engage.
Since the outside viewers will want you to know the FULL TRUTH OF MY COMMENTARY, because they are so offended (and are certainly here reading and ready to pounce), I am putting the FULL VIEW FOR YOU. I want you to judge me knowing the full facts. Here is the email I received from Catherine:
Hi Molly,
Thank you so much for your quick response, I appreciate the time you’ve taken to explain your concerns. Unfortunately, we’ve had a few past issues where Top 25 nominees were being personally attacked by other nominees, so it’s necessary for us to look into every email we receive.
The three tweets that we are concerned about are (screen shots attached)
As I mentioned in my last email, Circle of Moms is a community where moms can come to support each other, and that is why we have the site-wide policy No THUMPS. We also support Blog With Integrity which states “I treat others respectfully, attacking ideas and not people. I also welcome respectful disagreement with my own ideas.” To be clear, the tweets above border violating our policies due to the very personal nature of the attacks, not because of your differing opinions.
We would love to keep you on the list, that’s why I wanted to share this with you before the situation got out of hand.
Thank you for your understanding, and for your time.
Good luck!
Best,
Catherine
I think Catherine was clear and I appreciate her contacting me. And thus we went on. One other misstep I took was in RT’ing from my phone a comment about the opposition being “Feminazis,” which is a term I never use and I don’t like myself. I didn’t delete it after I noticed it because I don’t want to be accused of deleting the things I say to hide them from this silly contest. But, if you trust that I don’t lie, and I haven’t here… then I’m telling you: I did RT it and then went nearly three weeks without using the term or RT’ing it from anyone else because I don’t care for that language. I honestly thought I was RTing Brent’s call to vote and didn’t read the whole thing.
I know Rush Limbaugh uses the term liberally, I know why he uses it… and the frustration on the Right is justified. Many of the women who use the term feminist feel there is ONLY ONE KIND of feminist… those that want to “protect” their female bits from “the man.” Of course, there are those of us Conservatives that will not embrace the term, for it seems tainted, but who will vehemently stand for the rights of women and those of the unborn and do not find that to be an oxymoron. And though our sisters on the :eft might shun us from their “real feminist” crowd, we still are, in fact, woman-centric even if we believe that women have unique qualities and should be responsible for the decisions they make about their uterus at the time of conception, not after there is a child embedded in their body.
So the weeks drug on and I received lots of fun TIPS from the left about my behavior and the behavior of the opposition – comments on my blog warning me of the plan to disqualify me, Facebook comments to my work account. I mostly deleted them or sent them to spam because it was obnoxious. And it made me feel angry. I typically just get rid of this kind of thing because it’s a distraction. This was the case here as well… I am not going to screen shot everything said. I had friends and even my husband monitoring the facebook pages and sending me links… I never clicked. I just didn’t want to know.
Here’s just one example, among others, where we were laughing at the hacking of my site, and this talks about the “nut” at the top:
You know those disclaimers on blogs are great… you know the warnings that the author deletes commentary that they don’t agree with or find offensive. Of course, it does mean that anything you leave, you agree with too… By your OWN policy statement.
The one thing that was interesting was this comment to my blog:
Look how mean I am:
Then my blog was hacked. I mention it because it was another source of distraction. I, cannot, and will not assume that it was necessarily a part of the contest. I had (and continue to have) constant reports of hacking attempts from my blog monitoring during this period and I know the IP addresses of those who were involved. And I’ve reported it. I am sure it will be taken care of. I do bring it up because the story will require this knowledge in just a moment.
So, then I won. On the last day of voting when it was all over, I had 6600 votes even, and beat my closest competitor by over 1500 votes. Of course the Left grumbled, because in their really qualitative and quantitative analysis if they COMBINED their votes for their liberal blogs they really won… because that is accurate methodology. READ: SARCASM
Two days later:
Jennifer Romney to me show details Jun 15 (7 days ago) Hello Molly,
My name is Jennifer, and I’ve been following the promotional activity for our Top 25 Political Mom Blogs here at Circle of Moms. As Catherine shared previously, we take the integrity and actions of our nominees and program very seriously, which is why we strive to consistently reinforce our No THUMPS policy and adherence to Blog With Integrity principles.
We’ve unfortunately concluded that the ongoing promotional activity by your campaign manager, Brent Reichman, is not appropriate in the context of these policies, and will be removing your blog from the Top 25 list. As was communicated in the emails below, Circle of Moms is a community where moms can come to support each other, and that is why we have the policies that we do. We strive to offer a friendly competition that does not include personal attacks, and do ongoing monitoring of both social activity and user feedback to prevent such activity.
I’m sure that this is unwelcome news, but do hope that you understand our purpose in upholding these standards.
Best,
Jennifer–
Jennifer Romney
Vice President, Marketing & Communities
Circle of Moms
AHEM… that’s BRENT TEICHMAN my friend, and he’s my husband. His operations on twitter are distinctly more pot-stirring than mine and I will NOT apologize for him saying what he has said — that is not my jobby job. But anyone following us knows this. I am not his mother. What is annoying is a new philosophy, adopted post haste, that goes outside the parameters of their own policy. I do not endorse or run his account and it is a very slippery slope for Circle of Moms to unilaterally decide that he is “close enough” while those on other campaigns are not… you know those that called me a NUT and a WITCH…. Who knows who they are and what their affiliations are. NOT to mention the world can neither see nor evaluate all the discussion coming out of protected accounts. Isn’t that a conveniently uneven playing field? I’m glad Circle of Moms thinks they have the full story because they listen to biased emails that come pouring into their inbox.
The only thing apparent is that they waited for some of my last tweets on the matter… one where I thanked Brent for helping drive traffic in the last week where I called him my “campaign manager” as a funny quip. But, since they were watching my every breath, they decided they finally had some “gotcha moment.” Good job, super sleuths… you won a bloggy contest by wasting near;y three weeks of your captive attention on me.
So… that’s it. I was disqualified for what Brent said because I offhandedly called him my campaign manager. The last week of the campaign I was running a huge affair at my job and worked about 90 hours so I relied on him and you to keep voting. And you did!
6600 votes! And each one matters to me because we mobilized. We are equipped to work on much more important campaigns… and hopefully the left will just keep screen-shotting our tweets and whining about their ‘State of Offense.’ Because…. apparently their feelings get hurt and then people are not relevant. Thank Goodness this will not be the case when it comes to Victory 2012.
I am disgusted that Circle of Moms thinks they have the full story because they were constantly badgered by the Left with screen shots etc. My followers were defending me as well and asking to turn it in. I repeatedly asked them not to because it seemed that Circle of Moms might be busy running their site and they would see that our good nature was worthy. Clearly there is a lesson there. I wonder what you think… do we fight on their playing field or do we turn the other cheek? I haven’t answered this fully in my mind.
UPDATE…. BREAKING NEWS!!!
It didn’t end there. And, in fact, this is the weirdest part…
So this week a series of twitter accounts… ones that have no followers and follow no one back think I should be watching what the Feminist Breeder has to say…
Which was interesting because… who are these people?
She was apparently dealing with some email that she (appropriately) thought was real.
Long story short: they told her she wasn’t political enough and that they would eliminate her blog.
And I felt The Feminist Breeder has a good point…. Circle of Moms added her blog. If they felt it wasn’t sufficiently political then they shouldn’t have added it. So it all seemed kinda weird. And I found myself sympathizing with her because it sucks to work hard and then be eliminated… especially when it seems like they waited to do something until voting ended.
BUT WAIT!!!
MORE TODAY!
So…
Circle of Moms notified The Feminist Breeder that they had been hacked, that they didn’t have any intention of eliminating her from the contest for being insufficiently political (which makes more sense in light of the fact that they added her). So…
Weird.
All of It.
As it is… I’m tired. I’m tired of this distraction and I’m tired of fighting with people I have never picked a fight with. I simply thought the name of the blog was distracting – and I’m find with being responsible for what I said. I’d rather say what I think than holding my tongue. My fight: to talk about conservative politics to those who care or are beginning to care and to light brush fires of freedom in my community. What I’m not about… writing about slut walks and co-sleeping as a way to further my “political agenda.” Because… my uterus isn’t a political weapon.
As for Circle of Moms… clustersmack. I’m not sure why it takes you 18 people to run a site where everyone else does the work. But, you’re from California, so… we’ll let that fact stand out there for others to decide. (Hey… yes, I blog with Integrity… I say my truth without being silenced because you don’t like what I have to say. And having an opinion about it and NOT sharing it is no kind of integrity at all.)
So… would you never involve yourself in another online contest after this mess? And do you think I should have fought back? Let me know your thoughts.
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Official CPAC Blogger
I don’t think it would have been worth your time to fight back. I think the info you shared makes it fairly obvious what happened.
The biggest, best takeaway from all of this? The fact that you did have 6600 votes. Like John Nolte wrote in one of his articles around the time of Trigs Crew…#twitterpower.
I def. wanted you to win; I even sent emails to family to spread the word about your blog & the contest.
But bigger picture perspective, it’s just (no offense) an online blogging contest. It’s great to know that for more serious matters to come (hello, 2012) we are ready to stand together.
Thanks for taking the time to explain to your curious readers and twitter followers.
Molly: We love you and knew the truth even before you disclosed all of the peripheral details. The whole thing is a sad commentary on the ease with which a good woman is denied promotional rewards which were earned with no unfairness or distortion.
You’re reacting correctly. The whole story, once revealed, makes for compelling reading. But candidly, it’s not worth loss of sleep or peace of mind.
Molly, you won and they could not handle it. You know it, we know it, and most telling of all they know it (after all it took weeks for them to come up with a way to change the results). You keep fighting the good fight (or blogging the good blog) and don’t worry about them.
Rest easy knowing you have really won the day!!
Feminists…
Thank you so much for working it so hard! You and many others have let me know how they pushed hard to get the votes. And you are absolutely right… we can and will do the same in 2012. Conservatives might be late and we might not be quite as networked but our ethic will bring the reward. Thanks again!
Ditto Glen! Thanks for all your support.
Thanks for your support!
Good job Femi-Nazis, you have managed to prove everything I already believed about you. Since you can’t win by playing by the rules, you cry about it being mean and unfair until you get your way. I bet you all feel so empowered. What a bunch a fails.
We love you Molly and it is almost satisfying you got this much attention from the Left. It shows you got under their skin, which is a good place to be.
I’m new here.
Just curious…what’s a ‘slut walk’?
Nevermind…just googled it. I get that they’re trying to make a point, but that is unbelievably offensive. I support the message that women are never ‘asking for it,’ but I don’t think labeling oneself a ‘slut’ aids the cause. Gross.
Amie, I couldn’t agree more.
Love you Molly and your site. I agree, everyone knows who wins. I don’t vote for anything because of what someone says or doesn’t say, I vote because I have researched and studied the issues myself. I liked your site and didn’t like some others…I did check them out.
My votes still stand!
Hi Molly,
Well that was all interesting wasn’t it? I just want to add, that I do follow The Feminist Breeder (TFB), and honestly I don’t think anyone had a problem with the first comments that Circle of Moms (COM) brought up to you. It really was the “feminazi” comment that people found offensive; you yourself said you do not use that word and it was inadvertently posted.
As to the warning that was posted on your site about TFB and lies; I have not been lied to by Gina, the administrator of TFB. She was very clearly put off by the “feminazi” post and she said so; much like you un-apologetically state your opinions. There was no lie involved.
It is really sad that some of the followers of the two bloggers, TFB and Political Mommentary, got so caught up in the competition that they lost sight of the “circle” aspect of the web site. I don’t think either you or Gina were nearly as invested in the competition as some of your followers obviously were.
Mob mentality rears it’s ugly head in the oddest places; but in this day and age, it is ever present in political discussions.
Best Wishes to you.
On the bright side, I found your blog because I follow TFB even though I’m a conservative (I do a lot of attachment parenting practices and hope to VBAC next time I’m pregnant and she dies have good info on that stuff). Anyway I’m definitely going to be a regular reader of yours now, and I bet I’m not the only person who found you and liked you thanks to this contest! I’m looking forward to your future posts
This is great news! I agree, in the midst of being sent many posts from TFB, I found her to be a doting mother… and isn’t that chubby little baby darling? … and a wonderful voice for delivery, birth and parenting. So glad you will be checking in!
Thank you Karla for defining the majority of us… that despite our differences, we’d all lend a hand and be good neighbors despite our feelings on political leadership. Best Wishes!