David Callender: Yearly Kos Convention Draws Skeptical Eye

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(UPDATE: Read the post-event report at: http://www.prwatch.org/node/6321 )

David Callender, Madison, Wisconsin, reports in the Capital Times, August 3, 2007:

What's being billed as the nation's biggest gathering of "netroots" -- left-of-center bloggers and other social activists -- is drawing a skeptical eye from some Madison-area participants.

The second annual Yearly Kos convention, an outgrowth of the The Daily Kos Web site founded by Berkeley blogger Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, opened Thursday in Chicago.

Before the event concludes on Sunday, it will feature appearances by five major Democratic presidential candidates, including front-runners Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill.

But just what the event means for progressives, though, "is really up for debate," says John Stauber, director of the Madison-based Center for Media and Democracy.

Stauber says the conference is a confirmation of how critical the Internet has become as an organizing tool for those on the left. Those Web-based successes include Howard Dean's 2004 presidential bid, the political action committee MoveOn.org, and Obama's record fundraising prowess this year.

He cautions, however, that the presence of many of the presidential candidates at the conference, as well as the growing influence within the Democratic Party of "A-list" bloggers like Moulitsas and others, may belie the notion that the Internet will lead to a more grassroots-based, bottom-up party.

While Moveon.org boasts a membership of 3.3 million people who have signed up for e-mail alerts or donated money to Democratic candidates, the group's decision-making authority is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals, Stauber says.

In that respect, he says, the group is no different from the Democratic Party itself or any large labor union.

As a result, Stauber says one of the questions facing such organizations is: "To whom are the netroots responsible?' The challenge for progressives is whether a MoveOn.org-type organization can be created that would be accountable to members at the grassroots."

Stauber predicts that although Clinton has been criticized by many left-leaning Democrats for her initial support of the Iraq war -- an issue that has been central to many less-prominent bloggers and grassroots progressives but downplayed by many leading bloggers -- she will likely enjoy the wholehearted support of online leaders like MoveOn.org or Daily Kos.

"It doesn't matter who wins the (Democratic) nomination," he says. "The netroots will coalesce around him or her."

Stauber is particularly critical that only a few sessions of the conference are focusing on the war in Iraq. Stauber's group is sponsoring a Coffee with the Troops on Sunday morning to bring together conference attendees and members of the Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Also attending the conference is Dane County Supervisor Ashok Kumar, whose district includes much of downtown Madison and the UW-Madison campus.

Kumar says that while Web-based organizing has been touted as essential to drawing younger voters, he found in his own campaign last spring "that if you spent that same time knocking on doors, it's much more effective."

Like Stauber, Kumar says he believes that there has become a hierarchy of blogs "where many Greens and progressive blogs don't reach the same positions of power because they don't mouth the party line" that the more prominent blogs do.

Still, Kumar says that the Web holds huge potential for progressives. Blogging "democratizes the process," he says. "You really don't have to have the privilege of owning a printing press or a media outlet to get into the national debate."

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From the Capital Times, Madison Wisconsin