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I’m off to the convention this afternoon. Sort of. I mean, I won’t actually be attending the convention itself. Fired Up got the credentials for a state blog from Missouri (only one blog per state got them).
It’s OK with me, though, that I won’t be on the convention floor. If I were, I could listen to the same speeches you can hear on TV. What I’ll do instead is have breakfast each day with the members of the Missouri caucus at their hotel, see what sort of insights and news I can pick up there. Then I’ll go to the Big Tent, a two story tent that’s been erected three blocks from the Pepsi Center, which is where the convention is being held. The Big Tent literally is a tent, but an exceptionally strong one, with AC.
The Big Tent is for bloggers, and I think that’s where it’ll be happenin’. Bloggers do more than cover the stories. They’re coming to wield some power by shaping opinions, and because of that they are part of the story. We’ve been told that members of the traditional media will be coming to the tent to cover that aspect of the campaign.
Not that I figure I wield much more influence than a minnow in Lake Erie, but you take a few thousand of us minnows, feed us regularly, and we start to have some heft.
Anyway, there are a couple of reasons I want to hang out at the Big Tent. The first is that I scored a pass to the private area, the second floor, which is work space for bloggers–with WiFi and, I hope, some semblance of quiet. Not library type quiet, of course, because it’s Bloggerville and people will be networking, trading tips and war stories, chit chatting, and venting.
But more important than the work space is the panels that will be going on, one or two at a time all day long on the floor that is open to the public. The moderators and panelists will be people with national reputations. For example, one of the Monday panels will be “Revolution in Jesusland: the New Evangelical Politics”, conducted by Zack Exley:
Zack Exley is a strategic consultant with ThoughtWorks, Inc., where he advises organizations on communications, organizing and technology. He is also a co-founder of the New Organizing Institute. In 2005, he directed the online campaign for the British Labor Party’s re-election, and was Director of Online Organizing and Communications for John Kerry’s presidential campaign. Before that, he served as Organizing Director at MoveOn.org, and was an adviser to the early Dean campaign.
Zack spent the 90’s working as a union organizer. He entered Internet politics via his political parody website GWBush.com, which earned him the nickname “Garbage Man” from President Bush, as well as other early experiments in online organizing. He blogs at the Huffington Post about politics. And he writes the blog RevolutionInJesusland.com about the rise of progressive evangelical Christians in America.
Another panel, moderated by Thom Hartmann and featuring Paul Krugman, Arianna Huffington, John Podesta, and David Sirota, will be on the topic: “The Contest: Progressives vs. Conservatives”.
Those are just two of eighteen panels–on Monday alone. Even if I could find someone to sleep for me, I couldn’t attend, much less write about all of them. But I’ll do my best to pass along some worthwhile gleanings. Check in here next week to find out what I learned.
Clark said:
Michael Bersin said:
20,000 calories a day and no sleep. It’ll be fun. Do you have any McSame bumper stickers left over to take with you? Heh.
We’ll all be looking forward to your posts. The Missouri delegation breakfast should be very rich ground for information and opinions on state and local politics.
maryb2004 said:
I don’t think it will matter that you aren’t on the convention floor – it’s the behind the scenes stuff that’s more interesting. AND reading what the MSM is reporting and giving your own impressions about whether that’s right or wrong.
I’m truly looking forward to reading your stuff.
Write about whatever you want – you usually pick good topics and always have an interesting take, I look forward to reading it all.
The only thing I’m not interested in is reporting on other bloggers (and even reporting on the reporters) and the minutiae of the Big Tent. Last convention when the bloggers were “in the tank” we got a lot of that. “Oh look, I’m sitting next to Markos.” “Isn’t Jane Hamsher nice?” “I rode up in the elevator with Cokie Roberts”. “Look, Atrios just spilled his coke all over his keyboard.” All the stuff that makes the blogosphere just as much of an insider village (and thereby as unreliable) as the MSM. Ugh. Please avoid.
But most important. HAVE FUN!
Bob Yates said:
I wish I were there. Oh, well.
I look forward to going to Pittsburg next year and figuring out how we move forward with Obama in the White House and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and in Missouri, Nixon as governor and, at a minimum, a Democratic House.
In the meantime, it is knocking on doors every night and registering Democrats to make what I wrote above happens!
Byron DeLear said:
I hope the weather’s good for the outdoor speech
WillyK said:
give my best to Paul, Aianna, John David et al.