I need to vent. After the speech, I heard pundit after pundit absolutely rave about how good the speech was, including the historians on PBS. The only ones who seemed to dissent were Jeffrey Toobin, Rachel Maddow and Michael Gerson.
What in the wide, wide world of sports is going on here? Did they get caught up in the mood of the convention hall? Or is it as simple as they are all part of a conspiracy to make this race closer than it really is?
If you like to hear venting, join me under the fold.
8:07p Having coffee in the Coffee Bean in Denver discussing blogging with a few nerds of tremendous proportions. Sadly enough, I fit right in.
8:09p Riot police shooting tear gas into small crowd of protesters. Cops are dressed like Storm Troopers. Protesters are dressed like a Salvation Army catalogue.
8:11p I join the protesters though I'm not yet sure what they're protesting.
I'm watching T Boone Pickens, Carl Pope, and John Podesta on a panel at the Big Tent discussing renewable energy. I find this convention much less, I don't know, purposeful than I expected. There are very few memorable speeches or lines, certainly nothing like Ann Richards in 1992.
Here's a comment from a reader that seems to sum up what I'm seeing here.
My take on the convention so far is that we are being WAY too low key. Other than Kuchinich, I haven't seen anyone get genuinely angry. We've been pissed off and pissed on for 8 years and everyone I know is mad as hell. Where's the passion? How can you incite the people to act up if you won't remind them WHY they need a change? It's almost as though the whole party is afraid that Barack will get labelled "the angry black man." Sooner or later, they'll throw that one out...why not seize the label and embrace it first?
Interestingly, Pickens put out an ad that says that Iran is switching to natural gas and selling its oil abroad while we do nothing, but it was rejected by NBC because they said he couldn't prove we are doing nothing.
That's the kind of nuggets I'm getting from this convention - interesting points from T. Boone Pickens. I don't mean to be a downer, but this doesn't strike me as a great sign.
This angers me and shows McCain's jealousy. The smart, good looking, young guy is popular now and McCain can not handle it. Well sorry John, but that is absolutely the wrong way to handle it. There is an unwritten rule that candidates allow each other to carry on their convention in peace, but McCain is the master of breaking rules and he has cajoled the media into allowing him a free pass to do it!
I suggest that we, the progressive movement, take it upon ourselves to show John McCain that breaking rules has consequences. During the Republican Convention find a busy street corner near you and take some friends with Obama gear and demonstrate for Obama. Get signs, tee shirts, flyers... whatever. If you do not have anything find your local office and go pick the stuff up, print it off from the 'net, or make your own!
Make this a nationwide demonstration from sea to shining sea. Show the American people in every state, county, city, highway, and block that Obama will be our next President. We are members of the largest grassroots movement in American history.
Here are the announced speakers so far for the Democratic National Convention There are 31 so far, and 7 are women. That's slightly less than a quarter of speaking slots, and three of them - Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and Michelle Obama - are required, as opposed to selected by the campaign. So this is a convention designed to showcase the male side of the Democratic Party. But let's look deeper, at the national security evening, on Wednesday. Here's who is representing the face of the party on national security.
Former President Clinton
Gov. Bill Richardson, New Mexico
Sen. Evan Bayh, Indiana
Sen. Joe Biden, Delaware
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, West Virginia
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada
Sen. Ken Salazar, Colorado
House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn, South Carolina
Rep. Patrick Murphy, Pennsylvania
Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth
VP Pick
So unless the VP is a woman, the 'Security America's Future' evening features four Senators who voted for the war in Iraq, one ex-President who supported the war in Iraq, one Congressman who voted against the war in Iraq, one Governor who opposed the war in Iraq, one Congressman who served in Iraq and voted for war funding, and one veteran who served in Iraq, ran a divisive primary and got crushed in a general election. There are no grassroots antiwar progressives on there and there is ONLY one woman.
What exactly did Evan Bayh do to deserve to represent himself as a leader on national security? And Joe Biden? And Ken Salazar? And Rockefeller? Really? All of these people got the big decision wrong, but they are tied together by a willingness to preen around as serious boys who like guns. Moreoever, the one woman on stage that night, Tammy Duckworth, though she represents a laudable and important commitment to veterans, also represents an explicit repudiation of grassroots antiwar progressives.
Four years ago, while watching the Democratic Convention in my living room in England, I joined DailyKos so I could talk about the speeches and our candidate with other Americans interested in politics. I had friends who were Americans and others where were interested in politics, but I had to go online for the combination of the two.
This year I will watch the convention from a very different seat, as a member of the Pennsylvania delegation. How did I become a delegate? The short answer is that I applied last December and the campaign picked me. The longer answer is that I helped start Philadelphia for Obama back in August, and have been building a movement here in Philly for about a year now. I have participated in every phase of the campaign, and stayed here in PA even when it was very tempting to abandon my turf and head to an earlier state. I have been the point person for the visibility outside two Democratic Presidential debates, one in October the other in April, and helped make sure that Obama had a full slate of delegates on the ballot for the first time in at least a generation.
I keep hearing more and more rumors that state parties simply chose the blogs that got credentials for the Democratic National Convention. And the evidence seems to suggest that is the case. I mentioned Michigan as one of the problem cases, so I'll walk you through why the selection seems odd. The blog chosen to be credentialled was Blogging for Michigan, a progressive community blog. It is a good blog. But Michigan Liberal is far older and more established, with 737 RSS subscribers, a large number for a state-based blog. Moreoever, ML has over 2200 technorati links, while Blogging for Michigan has just over 1000.
Why is this a big deal? Financially speaking, conventions see big traffic boosts, and that means advertising revenue that Blogging for Michigan will get that Michigan Liberal will not. Politically, Michigan Liberal won't get access to the floor delegation, and Blogging for Michigan will. Of course, mistakes happen, but in this case, it's disturbing to see that the person granted the credentials, Cathleen Carrigan, is also an author on a sycophantic blog dedicated to praising Governor Jennifer Granholm and her policies, while Michigan Liberal has been quite outspoken about the Michigan Democratic Party's handling of the primary scheduling fiasco and its chair, the savvy and powerful Mark Brewer (who has something of a history with progressive bloggers).
The process for credentialling state bloggers has been problematic, with unclear standards and questionable motives for selecting bloggers. Make no mistake, this is a financial and political decision - Michigan Liberal will lose out because of this choice, as will Blue Jersey. And we have no idea why progressives and those critical of the party were turned down. The Democratic National Convention has had subtle problems with bloggers for a long time now, with the lead spokesperson getting into it with the progressive tech giant blog BoingBoing. The lack of thought going into the selection of progressive blogs is an easily correctable problem, and it's a problem the convention and the Democratic Party doesn't need.
Dissent is a good thing, and it would be a shame if independent progressive activists were penalized because they are willing to speak out about problems with the party. That's how Republicans act.
UPDATE: I'm told Carrigan actually works for the Governor. I'll email her to find out.
This diary has one purpose, and one only: to make clear something which has been completely lacking in the debate over Michigan & Florida and the debate over which delegates should count.
In 2005 the DNC decided, nearly unanimously, that extreme front-loading of the primaries was going to be a big problem. Similarly, the unnatural power of Iowa & New Hampshire needed to be mitigated, or all the other states would rebel. The problem with the plan that was hatched (which involved bumping up the Nevada caucus, etc) was that it had to be self enforced. The DNC couldn't actually control when Idaho & North Dakota state parties decided to have caucuses, or when the state legislature of Florida states would set their primary.
So to enforce the plan, the DNC gave incentives & punishments. Strong strong incentives - to states that were willing to push back their dates - and stern warnings to states threatening to disrupt the balance.
Take Nebraska as an example: When Nebraska first floated our plan to have a caucus on Feb 9th (as opposed to our usual May primary), the DNC offered us something like 30% more delegates NOT to go through with it.
There was a very raucous & prolonged debate among the Nebraska Democratic Party Central Committee over what to do, and ultimately it came to a judgement call. The higher chance of have an influence on who won by going early, was more important to us than the chance to have extra delegates. Was it the right choice?
Well the Nebraska Caucuses were a huge hit, so perhaps it was. But on the other hand, those extra delegates are looking pretty good right now- and if our caucus was on say, March 21st, I bet we'd get some pretty sweet media attention. But that's the point- we made a choice.
Other states made choices too: Kansas, North Dakota, Washington, Maine, and a lot more states besides... some states chose to give up some delegates to get to go earlier. Some states, like PA & NC decided to hold their regular late contests, and were awarded maximum delegates. Two states decided that going super early was worth the risk that they would loose all their delegates entirely (as they had been promised they would). Those states did get unprecedented media attention- much more than they would have received by voting on Super Tuesday- but they had their delegates stripped, as they knew they would.
But the fact remains that it was a choice made by the democratically elected state party in each state. For the Clinton campaign to argue that we should seat the Florida delegation would be like Obama to argue that he should get 10 more delegates from Nebraska. For Michigan to have a chance to redo their caucus at a later date, and have it count, would be like for Kansas to try to redo their caucus in May to get 20 more delegates too.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, a novice political blogger opened up her big fat, um, keyboard and suggested that there be a blogger panel at the Florida Democratic Party Convention.
STATE BLOGS
Cross-posted from 