After the excitement, the oddity: Al Gore's trip to the Netroots Nation this morning came with a certain superstar swooning from the progressives. There was more a dash of bafflement when Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party presidential candidate, turned up as an attendee. He quickly became surrounded by a gaggle of reporters/bloggers/vloggers on the fourth floor, most of whom were kind of baffled to why he'd turned out.
Since the Libertarians are slicing into the GOP quite seriously, and dragging some progressives along as well, why not? "We're polling in double digits in some states, six percent nationally," explained Barr. He put a chunk of this down to the increased youth vote (who seemingly are breaking every direction except GOP), but also the fact that the Libertarian Party is acting like a real party. Take, for example, the Libertarian Party of Texas trying to mimic the 50 State Strategy with their own "run everywhere" approach.
However, party unity could be a thorny issue, since Barr's started saying nice things about Gore and suggested the government bail-outs of mortgage enders may not be wholly evil, he's started taking some flack from some name small-l libertarians.
After talking to the Chronicle last week, Netroots nation keynote speaker Lawrence Lessig was in town to further push his Change Congress campaign reform pledge drive. The big news today is that he has launched an impartial blogger council (or more counsel) to act as a rolling critique/detached advisory board for his political reform movement.
But talking of counsel, Mr. Creative Commmons is a lawyer. A little-remembered part of Lessig's career is that he clerked for Judge (now Justice) Antonin Scalia, and he took time to reveal an anecdote about his hiring. It seems that, after an interview that devolved into an *ahem* debate about statutory regulation, Scalia told him he was hired. The only problem was that Scalia had to be in a meeting, so Lessig had to stick around for half an hour, getting mocked by the other, hard-line conservative clerks, until Scalia got back to say, "Hey, guys, meet your new colleague."
In January, Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina stood in front of conservative think tank the Texas Public Policy Foundation in Austin and said, "(Hurricane) Katrina did not unearth poverty but something more unsettling, particularly as a conservative, and that’s dependency.” Those people stuck on roofs, he implied, were in a mental boating recession.
Which is fascinating, because one of the key stories in remarkable Katrina documentary Trouble the Waters (which had one of its very first screenings yesterday at the Netroots Nation convention) is that of Larry.
A resident of the poverty-stricken Lower Ninth Ward, he used a punching bag as a floatation device in the flooded streets. He was pushing it from house to house to help rescue his neighbors, trapped in their homes. He couldn't get them out of New Orleans, but he could at least get them to taller house with a stronger attic while they waited for someone, anyone, to help them. This isn't "formaldehyde-drenched trailer" help, or "delayed Road Home cash" help. This is "not die" help, which never came. As producer/director Tia Lessin explained, "They had no expectations of the U.S. Government providing anything. They were their own first responders."
Of course, the U.S Government's preparations for another Katrina-Rita hammerblow to the Gulf Coast are much more advanced than they were in 2005. Now it is spending a fortune on a TV advertising campaign telling viewers it is terribly important that they buy flood insurance. Looks like everyone should invest in a punching bag.
Gore, Pelosi, and Netroots Nation executive director Gina Cooper
Photo by Richard Whittaker
If Speaker Nancy Pelosi hadn't wanted to be outshined by Al Gore, she shouldn't have invited him to share the stage for her morning Netroots Nation keynote speech. The former vice-president, who referred to himself as "the dog in this dog-and-pony show" became the center of attention at what had been billed as Ask the Speaker. When the Q&A portion began, he was peppered with questions from the floor at a rate of roughly three-to-one for what Pelosi was getting. But both made the same core point: that an administration, as Pelosi put it, "tearing up the constitution and saying we rule, this is a monarchy," is inherently antithetical to American politics.
As a major figure in the development of the legislative base for the Internet, Gore was definitely amongst friends: most importantly, friends that had read beyond the 2000 GOP taking points memos on what he never actually said. But that was kind of the point of his speech, that the US needed to restore "The rule of reason." Lambasting the "engines of distraction" at play in debate, he compared using fossil fuels to solve a fossil-fuel-created climate crisis as like invading Iraq because of attacks from Afghanistan.
If anyone was thinking that, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was going to increase her keynote/Q&A to two and a quarter hours, that meant more time for questions, they were wrong. Because it actually meant time for a special appearance from Vice-President Al Gore, who is currently delivering a speech about the importance of getting reasoned and in-depth debate back into politics.
Pelosi: What's scarier, a room full of bloggers angry about FISA, or making an ad with Newt Gingrich?
Photo by Jana Birchum
Talk about the lion's den: Speaker Nancy Pelosi is this morning's keynote speaker at Netroots Nation. With the latest FISA immunity vote, the lack of impeachment proceedings, and the ongoing war in Iraq, walking into a room of annoyed and disappointed progressives may not be her ideal brunch date. But the event (so far) has been pretty calm (even for the presence of political show-boaters Code Pink. What was it that Jon Stewart of The Daily Show said about them? Oh, yes. NOT HELPING.)
The format helps. Questions were submitted in advance by the website askthespeaker.org, and then voted on in advance to establish order of asking (online democracy!). This morning, the crowd was told in advance that any attempts to turn this into a screaming match would lead to the expulsion of said screamers and removal of their credentials. That actually got a big round of applause from an audience that (hey, here's a shocker!) actually wanted to hear what Pelosi has to say.
"This is a historic moment," said moderator and Netroots Nation executive director Gina Cooper in her introduction. "The speaker's office embraced a new technology so she could be closer to her people."
UPDATE: Code Pink were finally asked to leave the hall because they weren't prepared to abide by the rules or act like grown-ups. Seriously, wasn't there a Michelle Malkin in town to annoy?
Obama Girl and Army of Dude: One of these is a policy wonk.
In the scheme of things, Netroots Nation is turning out to be one of the more genteel events that the Austin Convention Center has hosted: Think the quiet attentiveness of the SXSW Interactive Festival, mixed with the affable bumper-sticker-vending of the Texas Democratic Party State Convention.
Aside from the high-profile keynote speeches and plethora of special-interest caucuses, much of the event is specialized panel discussions. What's fascinating is that there's surprisingly little live-blogging going on: Instead, the supposedly ADD-riddled political blogging community is paying attention to the speakers. More than a few panels have spoken to the ability of bloggers to challenge the standard political paradigm. Take Alex Horton of Austin-based blog Army of Dude, noting that while spending $170 billion a year on an unpopular war is just shrugged off as if it were small change, proposing similar expenditure for public housing or pre-K education is public finance heresy.
Why is this of note? Because more than one reporter, attending from one of Newsdesk's fellow traditional media outlets to cover the convention, sighed heavily after being forced to eschew the more serious issues because someone in their editorial hierarchy told them it was terribly important that they skip a discussion of some heft in favor of getting a few words with Obama Girl.
Eastside High: More changes, and more students, to come.
Illustration by Doug Potter
Eastside High is looking for 600 good students. As part of its push to get kids to sign up for the re-purposed (and still nameless) former Johnston High, Austin ISD is holding an enrollment fair for students from around the district today.
The new school is to be a school of choice, meaning students have to decide to opt to go there: No-one will be assigned until at least 2010. So this is about getting students who are really committed to the new proposal.The fair takes place at the the former Johnston campus (1021 Arthur Stiles) today (Sat. July 19) at 10am. The event runs until 1pm.
No, Obama hasn't made any announcement, but Zogby International released a fascinating poll today that suggests that the same secretary of state who helped sell America on this idiotic war in Iraq might actually be his best choice for a vice presidential candidate. (Okay, in fairness, Powell now feels really, really bad about it – unlike the wingnuts who are still in the Bush administration.)
In a poll of 1,039 likely voters nationwide conducted last week, 42% of likely voters said selecting Powell would make them more likely to vote for Obama. Only 10% said Powell would make them less likely to back Barack.
That's well ahead of Hillary Clinton's numbers: 30% said an Obama/Clinton ticket would make them more likely to choose the Democrats, and that is mostly offset by 25% who said Clinton would make them less likely.
Democrats polled slightly favor Hillary: 47% said they'd be more likely to go Obama with her on the ticket, compared to 42% who said Powell would make them more likely.
Both of those choices were far ahead of other possibilities. Among overall voters, the more likely/less likely numbers were: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (15%/10%), Delaware Sen. Joe Biden (11/16), Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (7/11), Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (7/11), and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh (6/12).
The poll had a margin of error of +/- 3.1%.
You can tell a lot about a political race by looking at the contribution and expenditure reports. Here’s some tidbits I picked up looking at the reports that came due July 15:
Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Rick Noriega is raising money, but not enough. In the second quarter of this year, he took in $930,457, and he currently has $915,506 cash on hand. While that second-quarter income compares favorably with John Cornyn’s $1.7 million, the real story is in the Republican incumbent’s war chest: $9.4 million, about 10 times what Noriega has.
"How the Media Learned to Bend Over Backward to Please the Right" is a panel about, well, exactly what you'd think it's about. Prefaced on panelist Rick Pearlstein's new book Nixonland, it posits that Nixon used media coverage of the infamous 1968 Chicago convention riots – and identification with the cops, rather than the protestors, in conservative quarters – to bludgeon the press into abdicating its role by browbeating it with charges of liberal bias.
As the sole MSM journalist on the blogger-heavy panel, the New York Times' Paul Krugman had some insight. "There's a stress in the commentariat that you're supposed to be counterintuitive … saying something people won't expect," he says. But that only goes as far as "Bush isn't as bad on the environment as you think," not, say, a less alarmist take on social security.
"A lot of journalists basically trimmed their sails," in response to Republican pushback – a dynamic which may be changing now with the netroots push back too.
Described as a five-foot-four-inch-tall twentysomething singer-songwriter and recent Florida transplant with shoulder-length brown hair and a name that "may begin with the letter 'L'," the woman was witnessed handling a bat while canoeing at Lady Bird Lake "on or about" last Sunday, July 13. The bat was later captured and found to have rabies, so the woman may be infected without knowing it.
Skelly, Jaworksi, Noriega, Matula: The future of Houston?
Photo by Richard Whittaker
It's no secret that Harris County is key for the Democrats' Turn Texas Blue strategy. So this morning's NetRoots Nation meet-and-great forum for Texas candidates was, unsurprisingly dominated by Houston-area Hopefuls: former Galveston city council member Joe "Thundersticks" Jaworski running in Senate District 11, education activist and House District 129 candidate Sherrie Matula, Rep. Rick Noriega (going after U.S. Sen. John Cornyn), and renewable energy businessman and Congressional District TX-7 heavy-hitter Mike Skelly. The hope is the netroots will add some national name awareness and some cash contributions.
Noriega admits it was his wife Melissa that realized the potential of the netroots when he was serving in Afghanistan. He argues they help because there are four kinds of candidates: the money man that can pay their own way; The Jessie Ventura-style celebrity; the self-fulfilling prophecy candidate ("no money equals no coverage equals no money"); and the people who tap into an existing community upswell of discontent.
The first full day of Netroots Nation kicked off this morning with a full slate of 9am panels. Newsdesk ducked into "Breakfast with Alex Gibney," where the Oscar-winning director of Taxi to the Dark Side, and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room screened a rough-cut segment from his newest project, Casino Jack: United States of Money. Following the rise, fall, and deep Republican connections of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the all-too-brief segment chronicled Abramoff's early college Republican days with Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed. (As you'd expect, it was alternately hilarious and terrifying.) Due in theaters next year, said Gibney, it's "a cautionary tales about how money properly applied can create tremendous damage."
Occurring at the same time was "From Dean to Obama: Four Years in the Internet Revolution" with online gurus Joe Trippi, Karl Frish and others. Tension between new media and inane, 24-hour news coverage was a tenet of Trippi's take. In elections past, "TV was, if you can fake it and have enough money to fake it, you can make it." However, with new media – unfettered YouTube footage and the like – "authenticity matters. You cannot fake it for 24 hours anymore." Look no further than George Allen's macaca moment.
Still, Trippi says the authentic message of a campaign, dispersed online, can still be manipulated by the sound-bite media. "In a way, that's what happened to Howard (Dean)," said Trippi, his former campaign manager, of the infamous "Dean Scream" the media torpedoed his candidacy with. "We are at a dangerous moment … we still have this fake medium … that can take a six second sound bite and make it last forever."
