Monday, May 12, 2008

The 25 Most Influential People On The Right

John Hawkings of Right Wing News polled right-of-center bloggers to rank the 25 most influential people on the right, the top five of which were:
1. Rush Limbaugh

2. Michelle Malkin

3. (tie) Sean Hannity & Mark Steyn

5. Ann Coulter
I was among the bloggers polled; my top twelve votes were:
  1. William Kristol


  2. Rush Limbaugh


  3. Glenn Reynolds


  4. James Taranto


  5. Michael Barone


  6. Mark Steyn


  7. Charles Johnson


  8. Jonah Goldberg


  9. Ann Coulter


  10. John Kyl


  11. Thomas Sowell


  12. John Hawkins

Ronald Reagan is tied for 21st on Hawkins' list. I limited my vote to the living; as I told Hawkins, my top ten conservative influences who are now dead were: Buckley, Reagan, Hayek, Friedman, David Ricardo, Adam Smith, Whittaker Chambers, Hamilton, Lincoln and Martin Luther.

Hawkins' Top 25 is available here.

5 comments:

OBloodyHell said...

Lincoln, it seems to me, swings both ways:

On the one hand, he pretty much initiated the modern consolodation of power into the hands of the Fed, over the States (not to suggest that, via slavery, they weren't abusing the f*** out of that power).

On the other hand, he did act to free those slaves (despite claims to the contrary, even "in his own words", I believe he had their freedom as an ultimate goal -- I believe he just did not want to go to war over it if it could be attained by persuasive means. That fits his apparent personality and abilities, as a man of great oratorical skill)

It would have been very interesting to see his longer legacy had Booth failed.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Coulter gets a lot of attention, and maybe she should be on the list, but I don't think she persuades many people. I don't know who I'd put in instead. Cheney? Volokh? Horowitz?

@nooil4pacifists said...

AVI:

Attention is influential. But you're right that I slighted, mistakenly, Horowitz.

OBloodyHell said...

Carl, It occurs to me that one other person, regardless of his intent or politics, has been quite influential, too:

Michael Yon.

OBloodyHell said...

P.S., you also missed Walter Williams.