Live from YearlyKos

I arrived in Chicago this afternoon to attend the second annual YearlyKos conference (yearlykosconvention.org)–a progressive blogging gathering inspired by the website phenom dailykos.com.  Last year it debuted in Las Vegas, and the event became a barnstorming venue for prospective Democratic candidates, and shook up the MSM (mainstream media). The very prospect of several thousand individuals not interested in covering the typical media fare—as one panelist put it today, “Americans are interested in more than celebrities and fear”—but rather, intent on revitalizing democracy and citizen participation is a revelation.  This year nearly every Democratic candidate is making an appearance…and then staying afterward for small group discussions on Saturday. Everyone had to practically draw straws for Obama tickets.. he’s the easy favorite in this crowd .For me, though,  it was pure gluttony, like being in a chocolate coma,  and the registration person had to leave me alone for a good ten minutes as I agonized and fell into dismay over which candidate to sign up for.  I chose Hillary Clinton.

I’m here at YearlyKos to present on a panel titled Progressive Foreign Policy and its importance for elections and activism.  It will be this afternoon.  I am impressed at the number of foreign policy and national security topics on the agenda this year.  Something I worry about a great deal is the tendency for many on the progressive side of politics to opt out of these topics, especially national security.

The number of choices of sessions, caucuses, working groups and other meetings is astonishing.  Today there was everything from the military family’s netroots caucus to the lurkers session (lurkers are people who are continually online, are mega-blog-geeks, but who NEVER post themselves).  Both sessions I attended were quite interactive.  Schmoozing is a premium here.

I attended the Southern Netroots Caucus, and the feminist blogs caucus.  As luck would have it, my panel tomorrow is up against a session called How Feminist Action online is changing the Movement.  But with an average 14 sessions going simultaneously, that seems inevitable.  This is one of those conferences where I wish I had clones.

All of this is taking place at the huge McCormick Convention Center, a black glass and steel behemoth on the shores of Lake Michigan. Imagine Darth Vader as a building.  It is so huge that they rent scooters out front to get around.

The event is organized by volunteers and a few donors, so the food is scarce and the amenities minimal.  But tonight, after Senator Durbin beamed in from DC and Howard Dean rallied the crowd, nobody was thinking about anything but turning this wave into a tsunami.

The most important thing said tonight, I think, was that every single thing progressives do must focus energy on youth, because if we engage them now, they will remain loyal for a lifetime. If a young person votes progressive three times in a row, you have him or her for life.  Think about it this way, he said: every election that does not include a huge effort geared toward under 30’s young people, you might be missing your chance for the next 60 years.  Now I hadn’t thought about it that way, but I sure will now. And it makes me proud of the White House Project, which attracts more and more amazing young women to its programs every day.