Chocolate, Elvis and foil hats as politicians woo the bloggers

The Times ^ | June 12, 2006 | Tom Baldwin

[MadIvan]

THERE were people walking around in hats fashioned out of tin foil in Las Vegas over the weekend, the fruits of a workshop on the media at an inaugural annual convention of liberal internet bloggers.

“It’s to stop THEM from frying our brains,” said Lisa Schiff, who writes a regular blog — or web log — under the name of “Crkrjx”. She explained that the tin foil helmets were an “elaborate joke on the much-despised mainstream media”. She said: “Everyone thinks that because we are on the Left we must be conspiracy theorists, even though we have some pretty good ideas.

“I mean,” she added with a sly smile, “look at my hat. I’ve given it a receptor aerial so that it can pick up the truth.”

The Yearly Kos convention is the most formal manifestation yet of what organisers hope will be a burgeoning political movement similarly seeking to harness technology for a higher purpose.

It is named after the Daily Kos website, which has a readership of no fewer than 600,000, including many of those who almost propelled Howard Dean to the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004: an angry grassroots — or “netroots” — forged through hatred of President Bush, fury over the Iraq war and contempt for the Democrat leadership.

The Daily Kos takes its name from the last syllable of the first name of its fresh-faced founder, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, 34. It is an interactive site that allows all members to maintain blogs within the site. Although parts may be easy to dismiss as flakey or even freaky, the so-called “blogosphere” has undoubtedly become both a phenomenon and a force. This is why a clutch of potential Democratic presidential candidates and other senior party figures turned up at the Riveria Hotel for the 1,000-strong convention, all of them bending over backwards to show how seriously they were taking proceedings.

They included two state governors, Tom Vilsack, of Iowa, and Bill Richardson, of New Mexico, as well as Wesley Clark, the retired Army general who ran for the White House in 2004, and Harry Reid, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate.

But leading the pack was Mark Warner, the former Governor of Virginia and a possible rival to Hillary Clinton for the party’s presidential nomination in 2008. On Friday night he put on a lavish party, rumoured to have cost as much as $75,000 (£41,000), replete with chocolate fountains, live bands, Elvis impersonators and ethnic cuisine.

“You guys are here to stay,” he told them. “You are bringing renewed energy to our party. This is the new public square, the new face of democracy and the new face of the Democratic party.”

This was music to the ears of Zúniga, who clearly relishes the attention. He joked about his name “being plastered across this town — I’m sick of myself”. But, in declaring that he — and the blogosphere — were not yet ready to throw their weight behind any candidate for 2008, he sounded more like the leader of a fledgling political party than the cyberhost of a cacophony of voices.

Jerome Armstrong, with whom he recently co-authored a book on the netroots titled Crashing the Gate, is already working for Mr Warner.

Markos, as he is universally known, said that he would agonise some more about his endorsement while the candidates paid homage to bloggers and “tell us whether their vision is our vision”. In the meantime the courtship from the centrist, sensible Mr Warner suggested that “maybe we’re not the extremist whackos everybody thinks we are”.

Indeed, Markos loved Friday’s glamorous party, but some bloggers questioned the “love-in” between him and the former governor. The netroots pride themselves on their “outsider” status.If Mr Warner is to become a real alternative to Mrs Clinton as the Democrats’ choice in 2008, he will need the blogosphere. As the Dean campaign showed in 2004, the internet community can rapidly raise the millions of dollars needed for financing an “insurgency” against the Establishment, as well as mobilise an army of new activists.

But they have not yet had much success in elections. Mr Dean lost out to John Kerry two years ago, and the 13 Congressional candidates endorsed by Markos since then have also failed. If it is the “new public square” it is a very small one: 600,000 readers represent less than 0.5 per cent cent of American electorate.

As one recent posting on the Daily Kos said, if the bloggers are kingmakers, “where is the king?”. There is scant prospect of them backing a queen, particularly one who supported the Iraq war. Mrs Clinton may have a vast network of patronage spread across the party, but she is reviled by the blogosphere and wisely stayed out of Las Vegas. Markos is scathing about her: “Hillary is afraid to take the lead. We have the ability to say bull**** is bull****. She is tragic.”

Among the alternatives, Senator Russ Feingold, of Wisconsin, would seem a natural fit for most of the bloggers. He opposed the war and wants to censure the President over the Administration’s domestic wire-tapping programme.

But it was significant, perhaps, that Markos told The Times that he believed there were “electability issues” against Mr Feingold. He said that the blogosphere was about more than being left-wing. “We’re educating, motivating and engaging people to become active citizens. We’re not kingmakers, we’re footsoldiers,” he said.

If Markos wants to wield more influence over them, he will need a helmet made of tin thicker than foil.

CAUGHT IN THE NET

# Bloggers revealed that a CBS news story questioning President Bush’s military record was based on forged documents, forcing Dan Rather, the anchorman, to resign

# Senator Trent Lott resigned in 2002 after his comments apparently supporting racial segregation appeared on blogs

# Bloggers were given press passes to the Republican and Democrat conventions for the first time in 2004

# Eason Jordan, a CNN executive, resigned after bloggers criticised him for claiming that the US was deliberately killing journalists in Iraq

# When Neil French, a British advertising executive, said at a private dinner in Toronto that women did not deserve to reach the top of his industry, he was revealed by a blogger

[MadIvan]

I take it that Mr. Baldwin, the reporter on this story, wasn't impressed by the Kos people.

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Ping!

[devolve]

600,000 "readers"

big deal

I had a 007 site that got far more hits than DU & LDot combined


--

I note that the CBS/Rather topped the list of blog exposes

But none from Koz

--

Let's hope many more moonbats join Koz

[NYpeanut]

I wish they'd leave Elvis out of this. That's just crazy.

[backhoe]

Atlas Shrugs take on this lurking of Moonbats:

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/

The NY Times gets it wrong, again

The Times is intoxicated with the Democrats appearing before the moonbats in Vegas, ushering in the age of the blog. The power. The fury, The future. The agent for change. The New York _{waste of}   Times did a glowing, kiss ass piece on the Kos Konvention here;

If there is an emerging consensus among much of the Democratic Party establishment, it is that blogs are an important, potentially crucial emerging power in American politics, as reflected by the turnout of Democratic leaders here this weekend. What is less clear is how mainstream politicians like Mr. Warner — or the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, who gave an address Saturday night — will grapple with an audience that has defined itself in part by its dissatisfaction with mainstream politicians.

Wait a minute fellas. Far be it from me to rain on anyone's parade but you've assigned all of the qualities of the Right side of the sphere to the wrong side of the sphere. The right  blogs  broke Rathergate, the Swift Boat veterans, CNN's Eason Jordan resignation, Kerry's impossible lies, the Danish cartoons, yads yada yada. It was the right side of the blogosphere that changed the course of history in the last Presidential election. All of the real action is happening over here guys.

The dinosaur media is owned lock, stock and barrel by the left. What's left for the liberal blogsphere is the fringiest, craziest, radicalized, far, far left. The Times really have it wrong. The left doesn't need a blogosphere. They own the media elite.

The Center and Right suffered a vacuum filled by talk radio and now the net. Talk radio was not good, great in fact but not enough.

So I don't know what they are raving about over there - out and about on their weekend pass.

Indeed, there was evidence of a gulf in the way the two sides view their relationship. For the 1,000 or so bloggers at the YearlyKos Convention here, the mission is nothing short of trying to transform the way politics are done. For some of the political leaders who stopped off for a quick panel or reception, the visits seemed more along the lines of another constituent box to be checked on the campaign circuit, whose value does not extend beyond its checkbook or voter turnout operations.

Steve Soto, who writes The Left Coaster blog, said that the Democratic leaders running the campaigns to win the House and Senate "are still treating the blogs and some of the advice from them about message and focus as unwanted solicitations from crazy relatives."

They are crazy relatives. And it would be suicidal for the left to move any more left if they want to win electons, despite the Kos Konstituency threats and tantrums.

It's funny. They talk about how all powerful the Kos blog is. This is purely anecdotal but interesting, nonetheless.I got my first link from Kos, the other day.  I gotta tell you.............it brought exactly 9 hits. I have gotten tens of thousands of hits from bloggers with allegedly last traffic. Imagine that. It was a hot topic too - Coulter's truth telling on the 9/11 Jersey four - and it was a real leftarded vote getter - whose breasts were bigger. You, chum for leftards;

Atlas Shrugs:  My tits are bigger than Ann's tits ... that's why everybody ignores her when she attacks the 9/11 widows.

You know the leftist drill. Misogyny nonparallel, their favorite. And yet 9 hits. When Wolcott did his Nips Ahoy  piece it drove tens of thousands to my site. Just sayin.

I think Kos jiggers his numbers. Something is rotten in the moonbat cave.

Posted by Pamela aka "Atlas" on Sunday, June 11, 2006 at 11:07 PM in Democrats, Dhimmicrats, Democraps ........aka The Fifth Column, Fifth Column, How the Left Destroys the Nation, Simmering Civil War in America | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (2)

[Tulsa Brian]

Must be a slow news day at The Times if this gets ink...

[prairiebreeze]

From Michelle Malkin's blog. This years Kos conventioneers.

[Mo1]

Jerome Armstrong, with whom he recently co-authored a book on the netroots titled Crashing the Gate, is already working for Mr Warner.

Interesting .. I didn't know that

Oh and Markos best be careful .. he may call Hellary BS ... but she is also playing him like a fiddle

[Tom Bombadil]

the tin foil helmets were an “elaborate joke

Actually, they brought their regular tin foil hats from home and the joke wasn't all that elaborate. They got caught and are trying to give it a believable explanation.

They will take them back to the DU with them.

[GVnana]

CAUGHT IN THE NET

# Bloggers revealed that a CBS news story questioning President Bush’s military record was based on forged documents, forcing Dan Rather, the anchorman, to resign
# Eason Jordan, a CNN executive, resigned after bloggers criticised him for claiming that the US was deliberately killing journalists in Iraq

Perhaps Mr. Baldwin or his editor is trying to bolster his story by adding these. They have nothing to do with Daily Kos. No one on that website has the brain cells.

[potlatch]

Well 007 looks a lot better than the idiots at Kos and DU!