Semi Truths A highly irregular weblog dedicated to Truth, Justice, and American Cheese…!

Continuing my review of the 2006 VA Bloggers Summit…

By a stroke of good fortune, at the Bloggers Summit dinner I found myself sitting next to Al Weed, our Democratic candidate for Congress against the incumbent Republican, Virgil Goode (which means, come November, all the local newspaper headlines will trumpet “Goode Weed“…)

Al and I had an interesting discussion about Diebold and the possibility of moving toward open source software for voting machines. The open source movement, like Democracy, is all about transparency. Al listened intently as I explained the view among free election advocates that using open source software to power voting machines is a bi-partisan issue because it means anyone can examine the code for irregularities. Al joked a few times that he is not technically savvy, but he asked thoughful questions and displayed a great deal of natural understanding. He is a phenomenally smart and impressive man.

The keynote address during dinner was by Jerome Anderson of MyDD.com, a political blogging pioneer whom Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos refers to as his “blogfather”. Jerome is now the internet director for Mark Warner’s Forward Together PAC. Armstrong also gave some qualified credit to bloggers for keeping national attention on the Jim Webb campaign. He added that Republican candidates are now learning to tap into the well-organized presence of evangelical bloggers. (In a recent blog entry, Armstrong points out that the Christian Coalition is also getting on the free market internet bandwagon). He sees a continuing trend of bloggers forcing national media attention on local races.

It was announced earlier that Al Weed would be hosting a post-conference reception at a local outdoor restaurant. Between speakers, Sorensen’s Executive Director Sean O’Brien read from a note handed to him that Tucker Watkins would be hosting a party in his hotel room for “conservative bloggers”. This brought good-natured hoots of derision from many in the room until Tucker sheepishly explained that of course his party was open to all bloggers…!

I found this little moment to be an unusually humorous example of a recurring lament: somehow, this summit was seen as a gathering of liberal bloggers. It’s true that Jerome Armstrong is a progressive political leader, but we also heard from Virginia’s Republican Attorney General and Lt. Governor. Vivian Paige and I talked about this later (on our way to “crashing” the conservative party) and agreed that this was just another example of how convervatives get a lot of mileage from the meme that they are somehow an oppressed minority, even though they’re actually in charge of everything important.

After the dinner, I did stop by the Biltmore for Al Weed’s reception. I thought I’d be there for just a little while, but it turned out to be the best part of the day. Blogging politics is one thing, but I really enjoyed actually talking politics with fellow travelers who are just as passionate about the subject as I am.

To everyone’s delight, Creigh Deeds stopped in and engaged in many interesting conversations. At one point, I was standing in a circle with Creigh, Vivian, Mark Brooks, Brian Patton, and several of Al Weed’s (all young and beautiful) campaign workers, engaged in a hysterical discussion of voting and civil rights. Poor Creigh had been up since 4:30 that morning and still had a 90 minute drive home, and I could see that it was extremely difficult for him to pull away from the conversation. This stuff is clearly his life’s blood. I only wish that the “conservative” bloggers had felt welcome there. Unlike some, I don’t prefer to be surrounded by those who always agree with me.

(Alton Foley claims that Tucker’s party was actually a shrewd maneuver intended to capture the “enemy” and ply us with alcohol. Nice try…)

According to a Daily Progress story , Waldo claims that the local ratio of Democratic to Republican bloggers is about two-to-one. (I was nearby during this interview, and I don’t think that Waldo actually said “Democratic” and “Republican”). Under those circumstances, it does make sense that the number of left-leaning bloggers outnumbered right-leaning bloggers at a summit in Charlottesville, but I found nothing particularly partisan about the event itself. I kept hearing rumours of a “conservative bloggers convention” that is scheduled to take place in Martinsville. As it turns out, this is apparently a misapprehension. Claire Guthrie Gastanaga heard the same rumours that I did and expressed disappointment that “the Virginia political blogosphere has allowed egos, partisan bickering and polarization to divide bloggers into those who attended the “liberal” Sorenson conference … and those who will attend a “conservative” bloggers conference.” An exchange between Alton and Claire has cleared up that misunderstanding: Blogs United, the Virginia Blogger’s Conference by bloggers for bloggers is scheduled for August 25-26 in Martinsville. This should prove to be an equally interesting experience and I hope to attend.

Continuing my review of the 2006 VA Bloggers Summit…

After the two speakers, the first actual blogging workshop was entitled Enhancing and Promoting Your Blog, led by Jon Henke and Waldo Jaquith. Waldo is the rock star of local bloggers, not just because he’s been at it since he was, like, twelve … but because he is smart and approachable. His “aw shucks, I’m just one of you” demeanor is completely genuine, but his output and influence are legendary in these here parts.

Waldo demurred to his co-presenter, Jon Henke, one of the minds behind QandO. Just to show how unhip I am, I had never heard of QandO before. While they were talking, I looked it up and discovered that Jon had written this line about Congressman William Jefferson: “Jefferson is not being judged by the color of his skin, but by the content of his refrigerator,” so I liked him immediately.

We stayed on the topic for roughly five minutes before veering off into sideline discussions, but that was just fine. This was the first opportunity we all had to speak up in a public forum, so that was to be expected. The gist of the presentation was this: content is king, and people will read your blog if you have interesting things to say. Also, the best way to get people to come check out your site is to go to their sites and add relevant comments. (Waldo added that he has only deleted comments twice, and one of those times was an obvious troll by someone just to get their URL listed on his site).

Jon runs QandO on software that he helped develop called .BLOG. Waldo uses WordPress (in fact, Waldo turned me on to WordPress for this site) and mentioned several plug-ins that he uses to keep out spam and other unwanted comments, including Bad Behavior and Spam Karma 2. For monitoring site traffic, Waldo recommends Mint (and both Jon and Waldo recommend that you stop using SiteMeter!) *

At the end of this session, I rushed to buddy up with Vivian Paige and Josh Chernila for dinner, but lost them in the crowd.

Continuing my review of the 2006 VA Bloggers Summit…

After the opening remarks by Bob McDonnell, we were treated to an introduction by Bob Holsworth, Director of the Center for Public Policy at Virginia Commonwealth University. “Dr. Bob” fired the opening salvo in what was the topic number one in the background chatter: are bloggers responsible for Jim Webb’s nomination as Democratic candidate for Senate? (Waldo hosts a thoughtful discussion here).

Holsworth concluded that, although the bloggers could not take full credit for Webb’s victory, they were part of the discussion that leant forward momentum to the Webb campaign. He credited the blogs with helping Democrats focus on a strategic candidate, one who looks good as a virtual candidate against George Allen, but wondered whether a national campaign can translate Webb into a practical candidate. Allen, said Holsworth, will run a local campaign, portraying Webb as a hand-picked candidate who happens to live in Virginia.

Holsworth then spoke more of Allen’s presidential aspirations, how former Governor Mark Warner is framing himself as another presidential candidate, and the strategic decisions that led to Governor Tim Kaine’s victory last fall. By the end of his talk, I think everyone there was excited about being a Virginia Political Blogger during this momentous time.

Holsworth is a teacher and a lecturer, and it shows. I felt like I was in a very interesting Political Science 101 class. He says “uhh…” way too many times, but is an inspired speaker and brings up interesting questions regarding the future of Virginia politics in general, how campaigns work and what makes a candidate choose their priorities. I really wish I could sit in on this class again!

Continuing my review of the 2006 VA Bloggers Summit…

After a few brief introductions, the Summit got under way with opening remarks from VA Attorney General Bob McDonnell. This was a rare opportunity for many of us to see this important man in person and he came across as very smooth, very Republican. He has been the AG for only five months after a close and contested race with Creigh Deeds.

To his credit, McDonnell actually read some blogs before showing up and quoted from them (although horribly mangling Waldo‘s last name in the process). He had some complimentary words of caution for us, referring to blogs as “new media”, which showed he had done his homework, and openly recognizing that they play an important part in political discussions. He also brought up some legal considerations, but didn’t offer much meat. He was probably wise not to take questions afterward, but I wish he had. Here was a rare opportunity for the Commonwealth’s Attorney General to address issues of defamation and copyright with a captive and interested audience, but he seemed more interested in talking than in listening.

In the final analysis, I don’t think that McDonnell said much of substance and he was too much in campaign mode for my taste. I heard later from one of his aides that the AG actually wrote his own talk, which raises him in my estimation, especially after we heard from Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling the next day (more on him in a later post).