"I'm here at the first-ever, full-on gathering of Pacific Northwest bloggers in Olympia, Washington. Today's session - held in the shadow of the state capitol dome - was marked by stories of how Washington-state bloggers helped defeat the evil Measure 912 (which aimed to gut Gov. Christine Gregoire's transportation improvement package) and influenced last fall's King County Executive race. Tomorrow, we'll be reconvening to talk about how bloggers can help advance progressive causes and candidates across the Northwest this year.
Lawmakers are getting into the act, too. State Representative Deb Wallace of the Vancouver area described how, although current (and outdated, perchance?) ethics rules prevent state lawmakers from running interactive blogs, she plans to launch an independent one of her own this session: Wallace & BlogIt. Wallace is shown at left with Mark Varadian, webmaster for the state Senate Democratic caucus. (For some more photos, click here).
And here's my "smal world" story: As you know, last week Red State Rebels won one of the first Dave Neiwert Awards given by the Northwest Progressive Institute to recognize the region's best, most active blogs. I met Dave today, and it turns out I'd met him before, when he and his sister-in-law Barb happened to be cycling over Idaho's Galena Summit when my husband Bruce and I were up there. We stood up there a good long time, swapping stories from the newspaper business. Dave figures this was circa 1989 or 1990. He has since gone on to write a bunch of books, as well as the groundreaking blog Orcinus, not to mention having the NPI's awards named after him."-from the post on Red State Rebels. Here are photos of some of us who were there.
Update: John Feit, writing on The Stranger's blog, Slog, has a somewhat less enthusiastic perspective:
"Yesterday afternoon, the Friday afternoon before the 2006 legislative session was set to begin (it starts on Monday), a gang of Democratic bloggers, including blogging BMOC David Goldstein of HorsesAss, held a symposium in Olympia to school Democrats about the local lefty blogosphere and how to use it.
The conference—organized by 18-year-old blogger Andrew Villeneuve, chair of his own grassroots project, the Northwest Progressive Institute, and Lynn Allen from Evergreen Politics blog —was held in a hearing room in the Capitol building and drew about 30 folks.
Two Democratic Reps —Zach Hudgins from the 11th (South Seattle, Burien, SeaTac, Renton) and Deb Wallace from the 17th (Vancouver) showed up—as did Gov. Gregoire's new communications director, Holly Armstrong. Also on hand: lots of staffers for Democratic legislators. Mostly, though, the room was packed with bloggers.
It was a pretty self-congratulatory session, with, for example, Goldstein explaining how his "David Irons Hits His Mom" story provided a devestating left hook to the suddenly surging Irons. (Our own SLOG got props from Washblog's Ray Minchew, who credited us for the Lori Sotelo voter challenge story.)
Basically, though, the bloggers' advice to the Democratic Party was simple: Leak your stories to the bloggers first. The partisan bloggers will run with your speaking points, create a buzz, and force the media to pick up on it.
Ironically, I thought the best advice of the day concerned a comparatively archaic technology: Radio. Michael Hood, whose blog,Blatherwatch, monitors the right-wing talk radio shows, advised Democratic politicians to go on right-wing radio every chance they get. Democrats, Hood explained, make the mistake of blowing off right-wing radio because they think either, they won't get a fair shake or that the audience won't be receptive to their message. Hood said that while the callers will be hostile, the hosts are courteous, and there are tons of independent voters tuning in. The producers put the combative callers on the air because it makes for better radio, but ultimately, it's another chance to get your message out. When Ds make the mistake of not going on, Hood said, the Dems just look like sissies. And bottom line: The Democratic POV just gets bashed. Hood's advice: Get on and bash back."
Update II: Goldy chimes in with his post, "Bloggers of the NW unite."
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