Mark Nickolas Of Bluegrass Report Is Moving To Montana

Glendale, Kentucky
May 24, 2007
I received the following email from Mark Nickolas today. And as I have blogged before Mark was my inspiration to start blogging at the age of 66 and this Hillbilly will really miss Mark. Best of luck to you Mark
The Hilbilly
I'm sorry for the informality of this e-mail, but there's never an easy way to communicate news with friends and colleagues.
I'm writing with a heavy heart to tell you that Chantel and I are leaving Kentucky and moving to Montana (Chantel's home state) at the end of the month. It was a tough decision for us but one that we both felt was the right one.
More than four years ago, I convinced Chantel to move to Kentucky after Jody Richards asked me to manage his gubernatorial primary campaign. We expected it to be a three month stop on our way to New York or Washington or some place else. But as life often happens, unexpected opportunities kept us here a lot longer than predicted. When Ben Chandler decided last year not to run for governor, we began to discuss whether the time was right for us to look for a fresh start elsewhere with new challenges. The fist-fighting I've had to do with the Fletcher administration this year only re-affirmed that belief.
When we moved here, I promised Chantel that when it was time to leave, she would get to choose our next destination.   Beginning June 1st, we'll be calling Helena, Montana our new home.  Chantel has had a long relationship with Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and he's encouraged her countless times to come back home. Though we're not moving for a particular job, I am excited to move to a state where Democrats have clearly excelled in just the past few years, and am hopful that Kentucky is not far behind.
For me, I'm looking forward to stepping out of the political vortex for the first time in many years and I'm not sure what I will do next, though I know there will be many questions about what will happen to BluegrassReport.org as a result.
The short answer is that I'm not sure.
I recognize the importance BGR has played in the state's political environment -- particularly for Democrats -- and I don't want that to simply go away.  In less than two years, the site has attracted almost 2 million visitors and 5 million page views – and continues to more than double what the Herald-Leader's Pol Watchers gets even today, and they are easily the second most trafficked political blog in the state.
Yet, the site is also a small business that I've built full-time, and from scratch, for the past two years and it's become a valuable asset. According to valuation models out there, BGR is worth about $100,000 because of a number of factors such as its traffic, links from other sites, and its very high Google Page Rank (hence driving a ton of search engine traffic). The site also generates about $20,000 a year in ad revenue without any effort on my part, an amount that could be doubled or tripled with minimal effort. 
Yet, I recognize that part of the asset is me and my contacts, and sources and contacts don't transfer, they have to be developed, so I recognize that I may have to stay on for an extended period of time if I sold the site by adding new writers who would develop their own relationship with readers and their own political contacts and sources.   And aside from its financial worth, BGR is a ready-made platform to debate politics with the core of Kentucky's political and media insiders, not to mention the regular readership the site gets from national reporters who follow state politics.
Alternatively, I've been encouraged by some national players to go national myself with a niche site and simply morph BGR into that effort, allowing me to take advantage of the brand and traffic and build a national site with a wider audience than the 100,000 page views I get each week on BGR. But that would end BGR as a Kentucky-specific site.
So, I'm torn and undecided.
In the meantime, I'm simply going to keep writing and keep BGR alive and well even if it means doing so for a few months while in Montana (all I really need is internet and a phone to do my job).
Nevertheless, the time seemed right for us to make a change, a fresh start, and hope others will pick-up what we started and created with BGR and keep its critical voice part of the political debate. There's no doubt that BGR has been part of an emerging national revolution that started not long ago where the internet and blogs have shown that you don't need to be a big donor or political party insider to have a voice. We've been fortunate to be on the leading edge of that revolution. We won more than we lost, weren't afraid to fight to force change, and I think we left things better than we found them. But like any revolution, the people that help start it often aren't the ones that finish it, and now seems like the right time to ask that others, with more energy and a fresh perspective, take it to the next level here in KY.
I'm so incredibly proud of the work we've done here, both through the campaigns we've been part of and through BGR itself.  Kentucky is a tough place for politics. The good guys don't seem to get a fair shake as often as other places, and I often fear that we're closer to the beginning than to the end of political transformation. But we've made considerable progress and I am so incredible encouraged about Tuesday's primary elections and the rapid changes that are happening, ensuring that good Democrats are now going to run the show.
As I wrote on BGR this morning, I'm excited that the top of the order for the new Democratic line-up will include Steve Beshear, Dan Mongiardo, Crit Luallen, Jack Conway, Jonathan Miller and Jennifer Moore. That's the nucleus of a team that can bring fundamental change to Democratic politics in this state, not to mention how important of a role groups like Change for Kentucky, The Women's Network, and the energized efforts by organized labor, have been to help change the dynamics.
While I intend to make this public on BGR tomorrow, I wanted to make sure my friends and colleagues heard it from me first. In fact, the Herald-Leader just asked whether the rumor was true and I confirmed it to John Stamper, so there may be a story tonight or tomorrow.
Thanks for making us feel at home in Kentucky during these past four years. I feel honored to have been part of the fight for a better political environment and to have gotten to know so many truly wonderful people during our time here. While I'm certain that I'll continue my work on BGR for the near term, I'm sure I'll talk to many of you before we head for Big Sky Country.
With great affection,
Mark Nickolas