"1,500 bloggers flex here"

Chicago Sun-Times:

"What you have done in the last six years is restore ... the democracy that George Bush and the Republicans have tried to undermine," Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told 1,500 cheering liberal bloggers meeting in Chicago Thursday night.

Many of these bloggers were the "Deaniacs" that nearly propelled the former Vermont governor to the Democratic nomination for president four years ago.

The mushrooming political power of Internet users is the most important development to America's political process "since the invention of the printing press," Dean said. "It has redemocratized America. There has been a tremendous shift in power."

Such is the clout of these Internet-savvy bloggers holding their annual convention in Chicago that all of the current major Democratic candidates for president will address them Saturday. The message will reverberate exponentially as the bloggers post selections online.

The "Yearly Kos" convention at McCormick Place is an outgrowth of the DailyKos weblog, which started just five years ago but has already become a potent force in Democratic politics.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), addressing the crowd from Washington, thanked them for pushing all senators on the war in Iraq, saying, "You gave my Democratic colleagues and me the support to stand up and fight this war."

But the Internet has its limits. Human beings need face-to-face contact, and that's why bloggers have come from all over the country and the world to connect in Chicago and hatch their plots for retaking the White House in 2008.

Workshops are being offered here on precinct organizing, running for office and "the art of the killer campaign ad." The caucuses here, held in traditional conference rooms with rows of chairs, inevitably evolve into concentric rings of chairs pulled into a circle in which the bloggers dialogue.

The "Knitting Netroots Caucus" featured 10 people in a circle talking as some of them knit.

At the "Living Liberally" Caucus, Chris and Lauren Shannon, who flew in from Tokyo for this convention, complained that too many candidates' Web sites only allowed a U.S. address for people who wanted to sign up.

Americans living abroad vote and raise money, and the Shannons were very active helping a Democrat take back Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional District from a Republican last time around, they said.

"Living Liberally" founder Justin Krebs plugged the 200 "Drinking Liberally" chapters springing up around the United States, which allow liberal bloggers to actually meet each other face-to-face over drinks every Wednesday night (now that "The West Wing" is off the air).

"So you're not just screaming at the 24-hour news channel by yourself," Krebs said. The Evanston chapter meets at the Globe Cafe. The Chicago chapter moves around.

Why do liberals thrive in the blogosphere but not on talk radio, where the right wing reigns?

"It takes a lot of money" to start a broadcast, said DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga. "People like me were able to start the DailyKos with $50."

Howie P.S.: This last comment makes Goldy's show on KIRO 710 (Sat-Sun, 7-10p,) all the more astounding.