'Net Roots' Event, YearlyKos, Becomes Democrats' Other National Convention

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: 'Net Roots' Event Becomes Democrats' Other National Convention
By Jose Antonio Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 3, 2007; Page A04

Last month, in a straw poll on the popular liberal blog Daily Kos, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), the front-runner for her party's presidential nomination, won only 9 percent of the vote, lagging far behind former senator John Edwards (N.C.) with 36 percent and Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) with 27 percent. She couldn't make it past 4 percent for most of the year.

But as the who's who of the progressive blogosphere -- the "Net roots" -- gather in Chicago for the YearlyKos convention, which started yesterday, Clinton will be there. Her attendance underscores two seemingly contradictory realities: blogs' growing influence as powerful backroom players in Democratic circles and the fact that they don't reflect the views of most Democrats, much less the general public.

"The fact is, the Net roots cannot win elections by ourselves," Markos "Kos" Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of Daily Kos and the namesake of the event, said this week. "But we can be a key component to a winning Democratic strategy."...

***

Tomorrow, on the convention's busiest day, an "Ask the Leaders" forum in the morning will feature Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), who heads the House Democratic Caucus, and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Later in the afternoon, a panel with the Democratic candidates promises to be the highlight of the convention, with Clinton, not exactly the favorite of the progressive crowd, and the rest of the presidential field taking questions.

"Look, the fact all the major presidential candidates are attending means that the Net roots, in a very short time, has earned its seat on the big table," said Simon Rosenberg, founder of the New Democrat Network, which serves as a bridge between centrist Democrats and progressive bloggers. "These days you can't have a dialogue in Democratic politics without talking about what the Net roots are thinking. And how fast they've risen from the periphery to the center is a big cultural change -- and everyone's grappling with it."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/02/AR2007080202261.html?hpid=topnews

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. They pander to us on the left now

and will forget us as the election approaches and they polish their images to appeal to the masses.

Then of course once they get elected, we are completely insignificant.

[Old and In the Way]

2. Have to disagree.

The internet has already changed the way Democratic politics is done...thankfully. Last election, dKos was only in existance 1 year at the same time in that election cycle. Now it gets 500,000 hits a day. The Nets are becoming a force on who we run in the primaries, too. Those that have gotten to the Party via the online communities are going to be influenced more by the collective communication in this medium than by the special interests. By 2012, I think there's going to be a much more progressive Democratic Party and the internet will be the primary 2 way communication vehicle for our candidates.

Think back to when Clinton was in office. He was a great communicator...but his message was distorted by the traditional broadcast media which was clearly pro-Republican. The message really only went in one direction, filtered through the Republican media. The internet allows our politicians to circumvent the Republican pundit class and go directly to the base. They can use the websites like MyDD, DailyKos, and DU to take questions, give answers, and get immediate feedback. It's truly a bi-directional medium, uncontrolled by the Republican media networks.

Really, I see the internets changing the Democratic political calculus significantly. The Republicans are top-down organized, they are ideologically rigid, and adverse to change. I doubt they'll ever be able to build or exploit a similar model, because their base is the special interest lobbyists that fund their campaigns, or GW Bush likes to call them, "the haves and have mores".