A Short History Of The Old Dominion Blog Alliance

The seed was planted on the 15th of November in 2004 by John Behan, soon to become known by his given name of Chad Dotson.

Several other states have blog "alliances" for blogs devoted to items of interest in that particular state. For example, check out Young Conservatives of Pennsylvania, the Rocky Top Brigade (Tennessee), and the South Dakota Blog Alliance.

Well, there's no reason there shouldn't be an alliance of Virginia bloggers, too; specifically, moderate to conservative Virginia blogs. I guess it's up to me to organize this alliance, huh?

By the 8th of January, 2005 the Old Dominion Blog Alliance was born. Chad bestowed upon the new Alliance a motto that certainly fits, a quote from Margaret Mead;

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Thus, with the following Charter Members the Old Dominion Blog Alliance began;

• Commonwealth Conservative
• Sic Semper Tyrannis
• One Man’s Trash
• northerncrown
• Q and O
• CatHouse Chat
• Spark It Up!
  
• Reason & Revelation
• SW Virginia Law Blog

Shortly after those 9 Charter Members were announced Will Vehrs had this to say in his Virginia Pundit Watch column at Bacon's Rebellion e-zine;

Virginia may be developing blog networks that will be as influential within the state as blogs have been nationally. An elected official who blogs under the pseudonym John Behan has formed the Old Dominion Blog Alliance (ODBA), a group of conservative weblogs...Liberals have blogs, but no "alliance", Commonwealth Commonsense and Virginia Progressive. A blog that hasn’t clearly established a partisan slant is Virginia News Review, although "Hefty Lefty", a new Virginia contributor to Polstate.com, claims it as left leaning.

With all this choice in partisan blogs, it may be time for Bacon’s Rebellion to start the definitive Virginia blog that presents all points of view.

However, during that first year there were a few problems, as one would expect from a fledgling alliance. Kilo mentions the sad fact that many bloggers simply fade away after a short burst of brilliance in his post titled "Blogging- The Old Dominion Blog Alliance". Soon after that Too Conservative, Skeptical Observor, Elephant Ears, Below The Beltway, From On High, and my own blog joined the alliance.

Of the 9 Charter Members only two are no longer active, ODBA founder Commonwealth Conservative, and Sic Semper Tyranis. As to Commonwealth Conservative, the lights may be out, but Chad conveniently left the door unlocked. For it's wealth of information and depth of writing from Chad, Will Vehrs, Government Cheese, and Norman Leahy, and it's commenters too numerous to mention, it will maintain it's place at the top of my ODBA blogroll.

In the past year the ODBA grew to a high of 30 member blogs. Recently several of those members have become inactive or quit blogging, most notably Commonwealth Conservative, bringing our alliance down to a current total of 22. Much like Chad did 2 years ago, I have taken it upon myself to re-invigorate the Old Dominion Blog Alliance by inviting several conservative Virginia blogs to join our ranks. If you are a right of center blog and you wish to join, e-mail me at the link found upper right on this page.