This has been another eventful week for me and I wanted to share something I wrote for our new local blog, I think it's universal and true for many here so that is why I share it.
Orange County, California is still a solidly red County but those of us living in "The OC", who are proud progressives, want to find a public space to voice our ideas and to push our agenda locally and eventually on the state and federal levels. Not only that but we want to encourage our fellow progressives to run in local elections and support them up that harrowing climb to higher office.
As we all know, none of this can happen though until many things are fixed about our election financing process and so on, but the progressive blogosphere has somewhat leveled the playing field but supporting such candidates and generously funding their runs for office.
Major congratulations to California Progress Report publisher Frank Russo, who will become the new chief of staff to progressive Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner.
This will be my third trip working under the Capitol dome in Sacramento-having worked in the 70's fresh out of law school as Administrative Assistant to an Assemblymember and in the 80's as Legal Counsel to the Speaker of the Assembly where I reviewed the work of the Judiciary and Public Safety Committees among other matters.
I can't tell you how excited I am to be working with Nancy Skinner and what a delight it has been to begin searching for staff and set up both the Sacramento and district offices with her. Technically she is not yet an Assemblymember and I am not yet hired, but the work has begun full throttle. With the voters' approval, she will be in the Assembly for a short six years under term limits and wants to hit the ground running.
For selfish reasons, this is bittersweet. For anyone trying to cover the byzantine twists and turns in Sacramento, Frank has been an invaluable resource. He's been one of the few journalists to cover the committee hearings, the press conferences, and the major legislation with anything approaching immediacy, delivering news and information you simply can't get anywhere else. He also achieved a milestone, becoming the first blogger to earn a press credential from a state legislature that vets their reporters. The state's political media has already withered to the bone, and Russo's departure shrinks that pool even more. However, there is a happy ending here.
I also have the good fortune to announce that a California nonprofit organization will be shepherding the California Progress Report from being published, edited, and written by me to a consortium of different organizations who see the value of having a daily reporting of California state news and opinion in this age of the decline of the established media. We will have more details about that coming out during the week.
That's very reassuring, and I hope whoever takes over has the tenacity and credibility of Russo. For now, I will just wish him the best in the future, and offer my sincere thanks for the fine job he has done building the California Progress Report over the past few years.
I recently began reading a blog called The Rehearsal Studio. The blogger, Stephen Smoliar is a writer who uses the space to "exercise ideas before writing about them with greater discipline."
Off and on I find Smoliar riffing on the theme of "slow journalism." The furor that swirled around the New Hampshire primary gives multiple examples of how the need to have immediate explanations, immediate responses to any little thing that happened greatly change the signal to noise ratio through out the media, and especially in the blogosphere.
After seeing Gila's latest story on The Liberal OC, I've been thinking. I know, I know. That's a REALLY scary thought. But trust me, it's not scary.
All too often when we think of the netroots, we think of those big, glitzy, glamorous national blogs with all those hundreds of thousands of User IDs. We think of that huge convention in Chicago that just ended. We think big, and we think national. But when you really look at the big picture, the national scene is only a small part of it.
The SF Chronicle just caught onto this, and I'm glad to see them noticing. There's a giant segment of the netroots that hasn't been noticed much, but is nonetheless making a huge difference throughout California, and throughout the nation. Follow me after the flip for more...
The progressive blogosphere was given an award by the Campaign for America's Future at their Take Back America conference tonight (we won!), and accepting on our behalf was Digby, one of our finest advocates, who ended her years of anonymity and revealed herself with an excellent speech about who we are and why we do what we do. I was proud to have sat around in front of computer screens and typed furiously away lo these many years after hearing Digby, my fellow Santa Monican, explain to the world what this movement is all about. Thanks, Digby.
I really don't know what to say about this. Steve Gilliard is one of the most amazing people I know. There might have been somebody who was more correct about Iraq before the invasion, but I don't remember reading it. In a merit-based punditry system, Gilliard would have huge book deals and be on the Sunday shows every week. Instead, he is yet another victim of broken America and our crap-ass health care system. Yet I'm sure he's fighting, he's just that kind of guy. And I will never forget the pride with which he referred to me as "his employee" when I was consulting for BlogPAC. I haven't tried to talk to God in a long time, but I'll be saying a little prayer tonight and I know he's in the thoughts of thousands of great people across our broken country.
(Now cross-posted in Orange and Blue. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
During the convention, I spoke (*not so well*) about the impact of community blogs. It was a rocking good time, except for the fact that I felt a bit on the unprepared side. Sorry folks! Well, anyway, there was also a reporter in that room, one Jennifer Hunter from the Chicago Sun-Times. She does a lot of coverage for the local Senator...uh...Barack Obama. Well, on May 4, she let out a cry for the old media. Not from a position of knowledge or experience, rather it was another example of media defensiveness.
When I walked into the California State Democratic Convention last Saturday in San Diego and saw all the bloggers, I realized that not only was I a Luddite, hauling around my ailing microcassette tape recorder, but that this trend of political blogging is growing like a kudzu vine, snaking around a dozen newspaper boxes ... overnight. (Chicago Sun-Times 5/4/07)
Well, I wasn't sure about the reference to kudzu, either. But after a little kudzu research, I don't think it's a very friendly reference. It turns out kudzu, in America, is invasive and grows out of control in the Southeast. Not nice, Ms. Hunter. But we probably shouldn't feel to threatened by Ms. Hunter's call to arms. It turns out that she throws out any remaining credibility at the end of the article.
You see apparently, Ms. Hunter never covered the tech beat, either in Chicago, or for her previous Canadian gigs. You see, had she covered, well anything remotely related to tech, I'm guessing she would have heard the phrase "early adopters." Well, she hasn't, because throughout the whole article she cites blogs as the domain of "early adaptors."
But putting that aside, her closing is a doozy.
In the end, who has time to blog? After reading four newspapers each day and my e-mails and doing my work, I've had it. Blogging remains a luxury for the young -- or the bored.
I guess I should apologize for wasting your time. I mean I shouldn't have spent all that time explaining the blogosphere to Ms. Hunter, given that it's such a waste of time. But I'm no therapist, and I don't know where she was coming from. Perhaps she was intimidated by the fact that Calitics had the best coverage of the CDP Convention. Or perhaps she doesn't understand the symbiotic nature of blogosphere and the MSM. Or, well, whatever, but somebody is a bit nervous.
But, Ms. Hunter, thanks for the shout out to Calitics. Any attention, misguided or not, is a boost to the blogosphere. Thanks for the help.
I want to give a big shout-out to the Calitics community and everybody who contributed to this tremendous coverage of this year's convention. Juls, Brian, blogswarm, hekebolos, Lucas, atdleft, Todd, jra, da, midvalley, and I hope I'm not missing anybody else did an unbelievable job. I've never seen a convention covered so thoroughly by a state blog since... the invention of state blogs. We ran circles around traditional media at this event. So we all should be very proud of ourselves.
Now we need to expand that role. Obviously getting information out about the convention is vital, and I've had plenty of people say they were looking to Calitics for the latest news and perspective. But if we want to help be a lever for change, we need to also understand that there are things we can do as activists on the floor that can help bring that change about. That means connecting with the grassroots progressives, preparing and planning for contingencies, and most important electing more officers and candidates and delegates who want to join us in this program for party reform and growth.
And let's take up the gracious offer by Garry Shay to offer input into how the resolutions proecdure can be reviewed. And by all means let's those of us who are elected delegates try to get on standing committees. Our ball has just inched off the top of the hill. Let's keep it rolling downward.
What is our problem with Ellen Tauscher? Why are we so hard on her? What's going on here?
Well, my good friend Mike Lawson (of The Liberal OC) wanted to find out. Though we in Orange County are no strangers to the powerofblogs, we also have never quite seen anything like the current focus on Tauscher. He talked to Calitics' own Brian Leubitz on why we've been hard on Tauscher, and what this means for the future of the Netroots. (Oh yeah, and see more at The Liberal OC!)
Counterproductive Katie Merrill seems to have been outdone by Ellen Tauscher's congressional staff, whose website scrubbing has traveled wide and far through the internet tubes.
While it is quite clear that Tauscher's current team only knows how to be counterproductive online, the larger problem is that her campaign should lack the ability to hire a netroots consultant who knows better. Working for Tauscher would be a career killer for a blogosphere coordinator and while the money might be good, it would be likely to cost other clients (a Democratic candidate would be a fool to waste money on an internet firm facing the wrath of the progressive blogosphere for selling out in this marquee race).
Not only has the fallout from this week's missteps catapulted a primary campaign, but in all likelihood it prevented Ellen Tauscher from hiring anyone more productive than Katie Merrill.
UPDATE This is not what Tauscher wants to be reading in the Hotline on a Monday morning:
Rep. Ellen Tauscher's (D-CA) vote for the Iraq war, her perceived coziness with K Street and Pres. Bush, have already made her netroots target number one for '08's primary season.
Interesting that the tradtional media only seems to pay attention to "events" when they are officially sanctioned and have the "right people". It reminds me of the rock world, where a band can be instantly famous if they have the right "members of..." in the group, whether the music is any good or not. Check out this article in the Sacramento Bee over a political website created by insiders that is launching on tuesday:
Thirty Democratic operatives -- pollsters, consultants and spokespeople -- will launch the "California Majority Report" at midnight Tuesday at www.camajorityreport.com. The big launch party is Tuesday night at Mason's in downtown Sacramento, complete with a "special guest," former Gov. Gray Davis.
Oh wow! Gray Davis... (*yawn*), how exciting. Heh, I guess it's good that he's keeping busy, anyway, the site CA Majority Report is billed as an alternative to the right wing Flash Report. Which is fine, I mean i'm all for more voices being added to the discussion, but it is interesting that the story acts like it's coming out of a vaccuum and totally ignores the previously existing California blogosphere.
Ever since the primary, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, aka Kos, has been talking down the chances of one Phil Angelides for Governor. He was pro Westly during the primary and now he seems to be happy to talk down Angelides' chances at every turn.
We're all doing our part to take back California and America in different ways. Sometimes I do it by telling jokes.
Make no mistake, there is a specific value in using humor to talk about the progressive movement contra the Republicans. It's a way to get information out in an entertaining way rather than a pedantic one. It provides good frames to share with your independent or on-the-fence friends. It's a way to take back ordinary political language from the right who've perverted it for 50 years.
I'm posting this for David Brown, a Link TV producer who is making a documentary of YearlyKos. Here's an opportunity for 15 minutes of blogosphere fame!
