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Bloggers, pols flock to YearlyKos |
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By Jonathan E. Kaplan
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Posted: 08/02/07 07:12 PM [ET] |
CHICAGO — Liberal bloggers and members of America’s political and media establishment will meet here Thursday to launch the second YearlyKos Convention, strengthening the bond between the blogosphere and the Democratic Party.
The three-day convention allows left-leaning political activists, policy entrepreneurs and citizen pundits who pay a $275 registration fee to strategize with Washington’s heavyweight pols and policy wonks and flaunt their power in front of the mainstream media.
The event has attracted so much attention that Bill O’Reilly, host of Fox News’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” has used his airtime to criticize content at DailyKos, the liberal website founded by Markos Moulitsas Zúniga in 2002 for which the convention is named.
O’Reilly singled out not only Democratic presidential candidates, but also the convention’s sponsors. JetBlue, an in-kind sponsor, asked convention organizers to remove its name and logo from the website after O’Reilly criticized the company’s involvement.
The highlight of the three-day affair will occur Saturday, when Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), along with former Sens. John Edwards (D-N.C) and Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) are set to appear at a forum. They will take questions from two journalists and the audience on foreign policy, domestic policy and philosophy, according to a convention spokeswoman.
Each topic will be addressed for 30 minutes. Following the 90-minute session, each candidate will move to a “breakout” room to lead his or her own discussion with convention-goers.
Besides speeches, conventioneers will have the chance to watch short political films and attend workshops on topics such as “The Art of the Killer Campaign Ad,” “Becoming a Campaign Blogger,” “Blogging 101” and “Running for Office” — parts 1 and 2.
There are many more roundtables and panels on subjects including “Blogging While Female,” “Ned Lamont: What Really Happened” and “The Middle Class: The Problems It Faces and Progressive Solutions,”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) are scheduled to attend the convention, but it is increasingly likely that Congress will remain in session on Saturday to finish its work before heading home for the August recess.
Freshman Democrats are slated to make appearances on various panels, but their attendance is questionable given the congressional schedule. Perhaps more than any other group, freshman Democrats owe their current livelihoods, in part, to netroots activists, who organized and raised money for them online.
“Once we started getting posts at DailyKos, we saw a huge increase in traffic to our website that helped us raise $40,000,” Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) said. “That was huge at the time in helping get the word out.”
Walz said a local blog, www.bluestemprarie.com , has driven news coverage in some of the newspapers in his
congressional district.
A slew of also-ran Democrats are planning to attend the convention, including Darcy Burner (Wash.), Scott Kleeb (Neb.), and Dan Seals (Ill.).
Beyond the speechmaking, policy analyses and punditry, the buzz has focused on seeing and being seen. The weekend parties, as should be expected of a Web-driven enterprise, can be found at Facebook.com, the popular social-networking website.
The party getting the lion’s share of the early attention as “the place to be” is a Friday night bash sponsored by Time magazine.
The People for the American Way hosted a party Wednesday at the Funky Buddha Lounge, located in Chicago’s trendy West Loop neighborhood.
The New Democrat Network is hosting a welcoming party on Thursday. There’s a pub quiz challenge scheduled, and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is holding a reception on Thursday.
The Teamsters union is having a cookout on Saturday afternoon, and Media Matters For America, a left-wing media watchdog group, is hosting a party to cap off the weekend that evening.
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