The New York Times published an article about how bloggers and online activists are finding the experience of preparing for the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
They asked Advomatic what we were going to do while we were there. My answer:
“I’m telling everyone to meet me at The Big Tent,” said Fred Gooltz, 30, an online strategist with Advomatic, LLC, a web development and strategy firm founded by Howard Dean for President alumni. “That’s where I’ll be meeting everyone else who’s like me, folks that I’ve only met online or blogged and e-mailed with.” Mr. Gooltz sees the $100 fee as a bargain, especially since he would rather network “with movementarians, who see themselves as a progressive movement separate from the Democratic party hierarchy.”
No offense to the mucky mucks, but this looks more my style, The Big Tent.
In 2004 I was a volunteer coordinator at the Democratic National Committee’s Rapid Response “war room” that the Party built down the road from Madison Square Garden where the GOP spent a week mocking a war hero.
While it was fun to train and dispatch crews to actions all around New York City, I knew that the real hub of action was north of The Garden. Up on 42nd Street, at a tiny theatre called The Tank, “The Progressive Tourist Bureau” and “Blogger Alley” were the left’s real mission control.
As the founder of Living Liberally and The Tank put it:
In 2004, Cosmopolity (now Living Liberally) hosted the Progressive Tourist Bureau and Blogger Alley at The Tank during the RNC… A rising generation of bloggers, grassroots leaders and activist newcomers shared ideas, shared space, and shared a drink or two during an energizing week. It may not have won us the election, but it built the bonds that have continued to fuel the blogosphere and national network of progressive activists.
So while I’ll be at The Big Tent, I’ll keep this fact in mind.
I see partisan progressive movementarians acting as the vanguard of the Democratic Party. As the online and offline strategies we develop to win are gradually adopted by the party, and as our winning messages are sometimes employed by enterprising politicians, we are influencing the party.
Someday in the future, when there are many more of us on the inside, graduates from these trenches – in the mucky-muck decision making roles, then maybe I’d consider spending more time in something like The Pepsi Center.