Thursday, July 24th, 2008
Netroots Nation Day 1: What the F*#% am I Doing Here?!
On the first day of Netroots Nation, I didn’t leave the house until about 8 o’clock. Because of fighting traffic, that meant that I pulled into the parking garage across the street from the Austin Convention Center right at 9. Counting the time it took me to get registered and receive my ID tag and swag bag, that made me fashionably late for the Lurkers’ Caucus. Not that it mattered.
The registration booth at NN
Lurkers’ Caucus
It turned out that my being a few minutes tardy didn’t matter, as we had no "official" leadership present. Fortunately, a fellow "lurker" who had attended one of these panels before took charge and had each of us give our life stories expound about why we lurk and what our favorite blogs are, or if we blog, to take the opportunity to do a little blogwhoring. My spiel wasn’t as in-depth as I would’ve liked, but I don’t think anyone minded that.
Charlie Brown, prior to speaking
Probably the biggest draw of the panel, both in terms of importance and interest was retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Charlie Brown, who is running for Rep. John Doolittle’s seat in CA-4 after narrowly losing to him in ‘06. When he got up to speak, it quickly turned into an impromptu Q & A session, which mainly focused on issues like holding the crooks in office accountable and fixing the economy. After about four or five minutes of questions, our self-appointed leader quashed any remaining questions for the candidate so that we could give everyone a chance to toot their own horns.
Charlie Brown answers a question from the audience
Texas Bloggers’ Caucus
Our hosts
Nearly everyone attending the panel was from Texas. I’ll tell you that up front, so you get some idea of what was discussed. The panel consisted of Vince Leibowitz from the blog Capitol Annex and head of the Texas Progressive Alliance; Ann *I forgot her last name* of Annatopia; Boadicea from TexasKaos; Charles Kuffner, who runs Off the Kuff and occasionally blogs at Burnt Orange Report; and finally, Matt Glazer, Editor-in-Chief of BOR.
In addition to the panelists, Glen Maxey was in the audience, while Texas SD-11 candidate Joe Jaworski and Melissa Noriega, wife of Senate candidate Rick Noriega, were invited to speak to the audience at length.
Joe Jaworski encouraging support for his candidacy
Melissa Noriega explains why Big Bad John must go
Fun times.
Lunchtime Antics
By the time the Texas Bloggers’ Caucus got out, it was lunch time, so I decided to head over to Champions Sports Bar, which was across the street from the convention center. The quesadillas were actually pretty decent, but the tortilla soup, while not bad, was not my favorite. But imagine my surprise when none other than Pam Spaulding came in with a couple of companions. Talk about a thrill. I think I kind of surprised her in my somewhat fanboyish approach, but she was a good sport about it, so no harm done. (I hope!)
Yes, I am a complete dork
Better than the Double-Talk Express. Oh, and C-SPAN’s bus was right behind it (off-camera).
I actually managed to blunder from one celebrity encounter to another other the lunch break, as Howard Dean was going to give a speech in the square shortly after I left Champions. Boyd Richie, the head of the Texas Democratic Party, would introduce both him and the head of UT’s College Democrats. Dean gave an excellent speech, which included a couple of self-deprecating references to the infamous "Dean Scream." I had managed to stake out a position near the stage — all the better to slobber my fanboy cooties all over the head of the DNC. Strangely enough, he found my being a fan of Stephanie Miller rather amusing. Oh well, at least I got him to sign my Netroots Nation program.
We’re going to win back Texas and Oregon and Mich— wait a minute…
The Pundit Project: How to Outtalk the Talking Heads
The Panel of Doom: Faiz Shakir, Matt Yglesias and Amanda Terkel
This was the panel most derided by the local fishwrap. They provided some very good tips for getting on TV and for staying on message once you do get on TV. The bulk of the panel, however, involved giving victims volunteers the opportunity to practice the fine art of punditry. I didn’t stay for the whole thing, as by about the tenth person or so I’m pretty sure I got the idea, plus that was about the time that I discovered that I had accidentally misplaced my Netroots Nation program. (Yes, the one that Dean had just signed not 45 minutes prior; thankfully, I found it at the Media Matters booth in the exhibit hall after about five minutes of semi-frantic searching.)
FDL Caucus
You can feel the excitement building already…
I ended up choosing the FDL panel because I was intrigued by the announcement that they had teased on the blog the day before. It turns out that the big announcement is that FDL is going to do some expanding and become a community blog — similar to the way Daily Kos has been from the beginning and that Feministing became about a month ago. The community blog section of FDL is going to be known as the Oxdown Gazette, after the fictitious newspaper that formed the basis of a British journalism licensing exam.
GNB Crew (L-R): "Tokyo" Terri MacMillan, Lauren (a.k.a. the littlest gator), Hubris Sonic, Sara Robinson, Jesse "Doc" Wendel, LowerManhattanite
Perhaps the most exciting part of the panel for me, aside from meeting Dave Neiwert, was meeting the fine folks over at GroupNewsBlog and learning that they’re even more wonderful in person than they are online. I got the chance to compare notes on life in Japan with Tokyo Terri and the littlest gator and — after explaining the origins of the my blog’s name — to commiserate on old cartoons with LowerManhattanite (particularly that one with the shark that channels Curly Howard).
Party at the Moonshine
We drew quite the crowd
I was looking for something to do in between the FDL panel and the Austin Drinking Liberally After-party, so I decided to stop by the party that the Texas Observer and the Center for Constitutional Rights were holding over at the Moonshine Patio Bar and Grill. The highlights of that were definitely meeting Atrios and hobnobbing with the Texas Observer’s staff. Even so, the finger food was good and I had some interesting conversations with fellow bloggers/lurkers.
Austin DL After-party
I headed straight for the Drinking Liberally after-party upon leaving the Moonshine, but it was sparsely populated — until people started coming out from Howard Dean’s keynote, it was just me, Fearless Leader and a couple of semi-regulars. After about 8:15, however, people started showing up. I even got to meet a couple of the folks who blog over at Booman Tribune. Good times were had by all, and there was much rejoicing.
Sidebar: Man, I just keep dropping names here, don’t I? Sorry. I’ll try to minimize it as much as possible, but given that this is a blogger conference I’m writing about, I’m bound to report having run into blog celebrities every now and then. It sort of goes with the territory. Feel free to come up with a suitable form of revenge. I’ll probably even deserve it.
So that wraps up my recap of Day 1 of Netroots Nation. Stay tuned for coverage of Day 2!
Recap Home | Next: Day 2 — You Think I’ve Been Intemperate? I’ll Show You Intemperate! =>
