Laughing Liberally's Katie Halper and Spencer Ackerman discussed politics with some PUMAs yesterday in the streets of Denver, a few blocks from the Pepsi Center, trying to understand their point of view, and...hoo boy.
Oregon Senate candidate Jeff Merkley is one of four Senate candidates who spoke at the convention tonight in Denver. At 7pm eastern time Jeff Merkley took to the stage and laid out his vision for 2009 and beyond. Jeff is very thankful to have been given the opportunity to speak at the convention. Here's video of Jeff's speech at the convention:
Full disclosure, I am the netroots director for OR-Sen candidate Jeff Merkley
Yesterday marked the start of the Democratic National Convention, but our campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act kicked into high gear over the weekend with the rollout ads to broaden support for the Employee Free Choice Act.
Included in this kickoff are two prominentbillboards in Denver, full page ads in Politico and USA Today, and expansive online advertising (including here on Open Left). This is a preview of a larger campaign to make the Employee Free Choice Act a reality for workers struggling in this economy, with plans to run until the bill is passed.
Check out one of our billboards up in Denver:
American Rights at Work is releasing these ads in advance of Labor Day as part of a huge, new coordinated effort among workers' rights advocates, progressives, and labor unions to champion this legislation. These ads help kickoff a new campaign and coordinated push for passage of this critical legislation.
Two weeks ago I asked "Who Should Give the Keynote Address?" and now Barack Obama has answered the question for us. It will be former Virginia Governor and future Virginia Senator Mark Warner.
As we pondered the possibilities two weeks ago, the first one to throw out Mark Warner's name was existenz:
How about Mark Warner? He is definitely an up-and-coming Democrat. I could see him as the nominee in eight years. He's also as close to a lock on his race as we've got, with the added bonus that he is from Virginia. I'd pick Warner if he has speech-making chops. Otherwise Schweitzer.
How are Warner's speechifying skills anyway?
This move would seem to formally shut the door on Warner-as-VP talk. Not that he was on the short list, but some were suggesting it despite the fact that Warner is a near lock to win his Senate campaign in Virginia. The big primetime speech might be worth an extra fraction of a point in Virginia which could prove to be the state that puts Obama over the top.
The selection of ex-VA Gov. Mark Warner to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention comes on the heels of a secret, last-minute effort to convince Warner to submit his name and record for vice presidential vetting.
Sources close to Warner say that the Virginia Senate candidate was subject to fairly intense pressure by Obama advisers to allow the team of Eric Holder and Caroline Kennedy to open an account and begin their work.
With television coverage of the political conventions being reduced with seemingly every passing Presidential election, there are only a few events on the convention schedule that will get noticed. There are the speeches by Barack Obama, his choice for VP, maybe Hillary Clinton's speech as well as the keynote address.
On a list of the greatest political speeches of the 20th century, keynote addresses (and other convention speeches) figure prominantly. Barbara Jordan's keynote at the 1976 convention is rated 5th overall behind only speeches by MLK, JFK, FDR and FDR again. Also high on the list is Mario Cuomo's 1984 keynote.
So, who should do it this year? I'll break it down on the jump.
Update from comments: Is Hillary the Keynote or is this headline just wrong. I think the headline is wrong, she's a speaker but not the keynoter.
I was among the so-called "prominent state blog(ger)s" (heh) who signed on to an open letter to Democratic Chairman Howard Dean, asking for him to look at apparent irregularities in the process of credentialing the "state blogger corps" for the National Democratic Convention in Denver. In particular there are 4 cases where it seems the State Parties may have nixed the obvious choices in favor of more sycophantic blogs that don't criticize local Democrats, or have direct connections to people in power. Now, honestly, 4 out of 50 is a pretty good ratio, considering this is an "experiment," - but also considering that the MO seems to have been to explicitly defer to the State Parties on the credentialing decision.
Personally, I believe this is more naivete than malevolence, as such a decision is consistent with Dean's desire to devolve resources and control to the State level. It's just that he's a Vermonter, and in Vermont, the inhabitants of the State Party office are all quite decent folk (even if we give 'em hell sometimes). The problem is, not every state is lucky enough to be Vermont...
But joking aside, as has already been widely discussed, the most blatant and egregious example is in New Jersey, where Blue Jersey - which is arguably the state blog standard on which all others should be judged - was passed over for a site called PolitickerNJ. PolitickerNJ (formerly PoliticsNJ) is the companion to sites such as PolitickerNH and.... PolitickerVT. The "politicker" brand is a corporate one (as we discussed here), wholly owned and run by the New York Observer under what would seem to be a sort of blog-franchise model. It is supposedly non-partisan, and not a "netroots" site by any stretch, and that alone should tag the decision as a poor (and questionable) one.
But its worse than that. PolNJ is fairly innocuous, as is PolNH. The primary commonality between all these sites is anonymity, as they are all run by someone psuedonymed "Wally Edge" who occasionally chimes in with commentary of his/her own. Now, its clear that these "Edges" are all different people, but the point is that they all exist under the same corporate brand, logo, and even name, and the parent organization (which is the real entity being granted access to the convention) is equally responsible for all of them.
And far from being innocuous, let me share a bit of what Vermont's Wally Edge has been gracing Vermonters with on a regular basis, through the Politicker platform generously provided by the Observer:
