OK, somehbody has to ask the question. Does holding a convention in Las Vegas mean the political blogosphere has gone too mainstream? Think about it.
Reports Kate Phillips in The New York Times:
Hundreds of liberal (they’d say progressive) Internet bloggers crawled out of their cybertunnels for face-time and political networking here at the first-ever YearlyKos convention.
Named after DailyKos.com, the widely read political Web log by Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, the three-day convention that opened on Thursday is something of a milestone — an event that unites the irreverent and ever-morphing liberal blogosphere with mainstream political figures who have begun to recognize the bloggers’ potential clout.
Billed as "Uniting the Netroots," the convention at the Riviera Hotel promises top Democratic politicians as its headliners, like poli-Web pioneer Howard Dean, the head of the Democratic Party who was one of the first presidential candidates to mobilize supporters and fundraise online, Senator Harry Reid, minority leader in the Senate who not only reads and guest-blogs but has his own Web site (giveemhellharry.com), Nancy Pelosi, minority leader in the House, Gen. Wesley Clark, and so on.
The gathering resembles a mini-political convention, with seminars instructing participants on the potential power of the blogosphere as well as talks on the Supreme Court, on religion, on the environment, immigration and other issues of the day. No hidden agenda here; the speakers and panelists mocked their own screen-worn politics as those of Bush-bashing, rebel-rousing, noodgy operatives, some already well-known for trying to breathe a new political life online to what the blogocracy views as tired old Democratic ways. Most of the panels, too, emphasize activism, online and offline.
