What do you guys make of this Kos convention?

I'm half and half. On one hand, I LOVE seeing progressive blogs get all this free publicity. There's this front page NYT article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/10/us/10bloggers.html?hp&ex=1149998400&en=0ed6c9918d829c8e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

The best part of the article was here:



I like that finally there's something new in politics that's from the Democrats, instead of the usual, which was the Democrats copying the Right (like AAR copying the established right wing talk radio). However, then there's this, which I feel like is not true at all:



Umm . . . I haven't heard ANYTHING about Warner on the blogosphere. I think he had one post on dKos, which I missed, but in general, the lefty blogosphere only likes the IDEA of Warner. But his Iraq position has not thrilled anyone. Now mind you, this article was written by Adam Nagorney -- somebody should have accosted him for his right wing articles, but instead these bloggers were apparently all in awe of the media. Also, maybe they're talking about Warner calling Kos and some of the other "Big Names" on dKos and the progressive blogosphere, as opposed to going directly to the people; you know, us.

Still, there is a definite buzz to this convention in the MSM, and I was wondering how people think this will affect politics and also how it will affect Kerry, who did not attend (I know, I know, he's doing Take Back America) nor was he mentioned, even though he is the best prominent politician blogger anywhere (no, I'm not biased :))

P.S. -- Armando wussed out at the last minute, so I didn't get to see what he looks like. Apparently, he claims that conservatives started a concerted campaign to "out" him. He wants to remain annonymous (which is weird -- wouldn't that mean that you would NOT attend the convention in the first place), due to fears he would lose his job or whatever. There was talk about that, BTW. Kos told college graduates to remain annonymous, because it could mean NOT being accepted in grad school or not getting a job. That was rather scary hearing.

From Maureen Dowd:

Despite being labeled failures, Democratic presidential hopefuls and lesser pols lined up to kiss the Polo-sneaker-clad feet of Mr. Moulitsas and his fellow Blogfather, Jerome Armstrong. Hillary was not there. Triangulation makes you a troll, in the argot of this crowd. "Oh my God," Mr. Moulitsas said when asked about her. "No way!"

But Mark Warner, Wes Clark and Jack Carter — Jimmy Carter's son, who is running for the Senate in Nevada — are holding blog bashes. Tom Vilsack, Barbara Boxer and Howard Dean were there. Bill Richardson, wearing a white T-shirt under a blue jacket, jeans and silver jewelry, flew in for a breakfast with the Kossacks in a Riviera skybox.

"We should be the party of space," the governor of New Mexico said, trying to sound futuristic. "I'm for space." Told that Mark Warner was there, Mr. Richardson said, smiling a bit. "Warner, is he here? I don't care."

John Laesch, who is running to unseat Denny Hastert in Illinois, was ubiquitous, even kneeling before one blogger in the hall seeking a "Netroots" endorsement.




Umm . . . YUCK!!!! They come across as pathetic. I think Kerry is more clever by going largely under the radar to meet bloggers. And, also, he's really good about how he blogs not too frequently but at least once or twice a quarter, and has good commenting back.

This also does show how out of touch Dowd is. "Triangulation makes you a troll, in the argot of this crowd" They don't like Hillary very much, but she is most definately not a troll.

I agree that it is better to have the bloggers come to him, especially as they clearly gave Warner the position of honor. I see what he gets out of it. I also think that Clark NEEDED to go as the web is nearly his only base of support. He could gain from it. Vilsack and Richardson need to reach a national audience. In away, it's like the fact that Kerry can get Matthews and Blitzer to come to his office - rather than go to the studios like the others.

In fact, all who have already achieved good national recognition - Kerry, Clinton, Gore and Edwards are apparently not there.

He gives them a nod by posting there but it wouldn't be fitting for someone in his position to join them any more than it would for him to appear at a Star Trek convention. Nothing against Trekkies, but I do think a senator has to maintain a modicum of dignity. While there are a lot of rational and reasonable Kossaks, there is also a large contingent of tin foil hats (every wing has its nuts) and I'm glad Senator Kerry isn't going to either grovel before that crowd or become too associated with them.

Star Trek Convention -- I like it.

Hey check out this diary, whining that Kos and Warner are getting too close:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/10/195516/992

I commented here to throw in a promotion for the Take Back America conference and for Kerry's resolution to get troops out, and finally to chastise the poster for not mentioning him:

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2006/6/10/195516/992/275#c275

I actually hope that Kos does NOT endorse Warner, just because I like Mark Warner a lot and don't wish for him to be black balled like that :).

in a few of those folks there.

Ah well...I'm not in a mood to keep my mouth shut.

Good perspective on Murtha. I like Murtha a lot, and definitely look to him for info on Iraq, but you are right that he is pretty conservative on a lot of issues.

they sound like morons kissing up the the crowd. i remember reading about how some representatives from the Dean campaign had to meet with some members of the blog community after he got an endorsement from some union. they were afraid he was selling out and some of his people had to meet with them to keep their support.

They were having too many technical difficulties.

Overall, if something isn't harmful it's bound to be helpful. I liked what Lakoff had to say, although he still confuses me with his frames.

Peter Daou was there and introduced as having worked on the Kerry campaign. So that was nice.

I guess I haven't seen enough to have any real opinion. But Maureen Dowd isn't the last word on everything, IMO. She loves to snark at whoever she can, so who cares what she thinks. Any print journalist will have a built in bias of their own that they can either accept or work to eliminate.

and then again today until they cut it off.

They were having terrible sound problems yesterday too - every third word or so was being cut off or garbled.

I have mixed feelings as well. I'm glad Kerry didn't go. Very glad. There's a lot of intelligence there, but also a lot of self-congratulation, which makes me queasy.

Here are a couple of posts I've read and liked. First is about Kos, not the convention, from Politus, who is an unabashed curmudgeon, and who loathes Kos.

http://politus.blogspot.com/2006/06/markos-blames-voters.html

Second is about the convention, and pretty funny, by Jurassic Pork:
http://jurassicpork.blogspot.com/2006/06/kosfest-2006.html

The problem is that this is far too much about Kos and not the blogosphere as a whole. I suspect readers here know what I mean and it isn't necessary to say more on this.

As for Armando, have you heard the whole story? It turns out he's a corporate lawyer who has represented Wal-Mart. While I'm no fan of Armando I could live with that if this was the whole story. I figure a lawyer has to represent their client's interests. A member of a law firm may have no say as to who the firm represents. Even if he has a say, I can't see a law firm, which is in business to make money, turning down a client as big as Wal-Mart.

There are two other wrinkles in Armando's situation. First he apparently is being criticized for posts defending big corporations, and is being accused of a conflict of interest here since he didn't disclose his interest. As I didn't read his actual posts I can't really comment on this, except to say I find it ironic that conservatives are outing him after defending big corporations--essentially a conservative position.

That's the public controversy. From my perspective, I find this more amusing considering Armando's propensity to hurl obsenities at anyone who he didn't see as being pure enough.

I am so sick of the LW throwing corporate DLC etc at Kerry, who doesn't deserve it.

Blog anonymity is tricky. On one hand, people are more inclined to express themselves more freely. OTOH, when conflicts of interest arise, it usually paints the person as a hypocrite. Protecting one's job when it runs counter to one's heartfelt beliefs is a painful enough process. It's all too easy for some to say quit find another job, but that isn't always feasible. Also, there are not too many people willing to identify themselves online. If it didn't matter, they would. So obviously anonymity is an acceptible part of being a blogger. I guess where it's different in Armando's case is that he's a high-profile blogger with a large following on a site where corporate connections are taboo, yet his job is defending a company that has become a symbol of corporate greed!


On edit: not the job running counter to one's beliefs, but the organization's underlying creed!

From the part I saw, I'd say I agree.

I just personally find Kos unimpressive. I think he was in the right place at the right time, and very lucky. Apart from the ten words I heard from Peter Daou, who is clearly a genuine thinker, a terrific writer, and someone who has some political vision, the part of the convention I saw was just an in-person version of the website. People sucking up to Kos in large numbers.

Interesting about Armando - there were a few veiled references to the controversy yesterday (I think it was yesterday).

will see this guy for who he is--rather arrogant, and very cynical. Not an inspiring person, if you ask me!

Kos has the advantage that he was one of the first bloggers. Studies of the blogoshpere not surprisingly show a strong correlation between being early and being successful as the earlier blogs have had more time to receive links from the other older and larger blogs.

Kos also had one good idea in allowing others to have diaries, giving incentive for others to stick around his site.

Kos has used this to successfully make money from a combination of his political blog and from establishing similar baseball sites. He deserves his financial success from this. That does not mean he is in any way an intellectual leader of the liberal blogosphere.

rather than:
Mr. Warner, who has been the most aggressive among the prospective 2008 candidates in courting this community.

I think the MSM looks at the blogging community as if they were a version of themselves. Warner is courting the blogosphere commentators. From the polls, which are suspect as anyone can freep them, it does seem that it gave him some attention. I actually have seen fewer, not more, pro-Warner posts in the last 2 months than in the previous 2 months. (I didn't count though) It seems the switch has been to the radical Gore.

pandering!!!!!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/10/us/10bloggers.html?_r=1&oref=slogin



I'm practically gagging.

And this one too, from the WaPo:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2006/06/clark_richardson_hit_vegas.html

It was clear in 2004 that the blogosphere could not by itself chose the nominee, but it also was significant in making a little known former governor of Vermont a major contender. Being involved in the blogoshere, I don't really know how significant it will be in 2008. It is even harder for those not involved to know.

Politicians don't know how much to court bloggers, or even the best way to do this. However, give them a convention with lots of people to suck up to and they are on their own turf. I bet they see such sucking up to people at this convention as simply another step just like every other campaign stop.

NEVER had a clue what it meant). Here was my impression:

-- it was largely apolitical
-- it struck me instead to be like a Steve Jobs Apple convention
-- I'm someone who reads and comments on blogs nearly every day, yet watching that panel I felt they were way too "cool" for me. I felt shut out, like I could never be so utterly cool like them. For sales to sell a product, that's great; for gaining votes, I'm not so sure how the heartland will like that.
-- I did like SusanG, and thought we should take what she was saying to heart about a good diary that she might put on Diary Rescue (there was an EXCELLENT diary linked to here, that was about Kerry, Murtha, and Jessica somebody -- that female soldier who was fake "rescued" in Iraq; it went nowhere, yet later that day it was on SusanG's Diary Rescue)
-- There was too much worship of Kos, and I have no idea why. Kos has such a high pitched voice that I could never worship him, even if he wrote fawning posts about Kerry every day.
-- Chris Bowers came across the best as a "Kool Kid". His looks and the way he talks and carries himself, I gotta say, in an alternative way is HOT.
-- The audience wasn't that great, and I don't think representative of the real blogosphere, full of shy people like me.

Interesting info, Dr. Ron, about Armando. Okay, any lawyers here may be offended, but from all I've observed and heard, a LOT of lawyers are indeed pricks. That explains Armando MUCH better to me. He's a cocky SOB, who in his spare time was cheering on the death of innocent Iraqis just so he could prove himself right about the Iraq Election of 2005 being a sham. There was GLEE in his post of a bomb killing 25 people (this was January 2005), and to me was a spit in the eyes of all the Iraqis who had risked their lives to vote. I gave it to him, and now that I hear about his cushy life apart from his radical online life, I don't regret it. Even now, with the death of Zarqawi, many lefties are poo-pooing it saying it means nothing just like the election. Well, maybe in the end it won't mean anything, but I really hope for the sake of the Iraqi people that their lives do get better and soon. But somebody like Armando would call me a "dupe for BushCo" for saying that. Ah . . . . the irony that he called me a dupe for Bush Co, when he's helping the ultimate exporter of jobs, Walmart, make more money.