2004 DNC Convention Bloggers : The Ten Best List

Liza Sabater

This is it people. In a thoroughly unscientific and rabidly biased study, I have come up with a list of the 10 best convetion blogs and/or posts of the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

10. Let's wait this out for a week. That's when the real punditry will begin:
Seeing The Forest : Read Bloggers NEXT WEEK, Too! via Scripting News

So I think that NEXT WEEK is going to be the week to really read bloggers. I have started understanding that bloggers are going to be able to contribute something very valuable to this process, for the same reasons they did with Dean, and with the electronic voting problem and all the other things we have forced into the attention of enough of the opinion leaders and public to make things start happening. There really IS something about what we're doing that allows us to have a perspective that you are not going to get from the press or the party or the professional punditry.

9. From corporate sponsoring to the Kerry family hair:
The Iraq War Reader : The rap against Kerry

Kerry, missing in action. JFK=Just For Kerry. Do you know who I am? The rules don't apply to him. Aloof. No warmth. Effete. Makes his staff brief him standing by the dinner table while he and Teresa eat dinner, not offering them anything. The only people who are inside the bubble are the vets. After the early 70s he stopped making real friends, just stepping stones upward. Yes, led some major investigations while a Senator, but no impact on the problems of his own state. What's he done since Vietnam? Pro-Nafta. On both sides of the Gulf War. Affirmative action--went after it when it was in danger, instead of "mend it don't end it." Not known for constituent service. If you have a problem in Massachusetts, you go to Kennedy's staff not his.

The Iraq War Reader : Hair Apparent

Watching the Kerry video...the girls have such perfect hair! The whole thing about hair in this family is really curious. Kerry is 6'6" if you count the hair...we've got the best values, the best hair...Edwards the Breck Girl. Teresa's got hair issues, too.

8. Christopher Rabb does Obama and calls on the QESG Fab Five for a beauty intervention with Bob Novak:
Afro-Netizen : Entry #8 from Boston: Chris Matthews is a punk

Speaking of racist dogs, I walked past fascist columnist and CNN talking head, Bob Novak, on my way to the convention the other day. I thought he was ugly on the inside, but damn! Even "fugly" would be too mild a term. Granted, I don't have the dashing good looks of civil rights deactivist Ward Connerly, but come on, Novak. Perhaps it's time to consider a visit from the Fab 5.

Afro-Netizen :Entry #6 from Boston: 'Brother Senator', "How Does It Feel?"

Goodness, no doubt, radiating from the collective surge of pride toward a man who made the more jaded and disaffected among us Blackfolk feel a sense of hope, optimism, and dare I say belonging to a political party still a shadow of its former self since the tragic rise of the New Democrat. Not ironically, Brother Senator became the embodiment and most compelling messenger of what Howard Dean's "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" rhetoric sought to reveal without the need to say so explicitly. The poignant authenticity of his personal narrative transcended what other speakers had to spell out with expressly ideological language.

7. Even though it was reported that 3 people from the site were credentialed, including Kos, everybody and their mother at Daily Kos has been blogging from everywhere. It's what I would sincerely call a comment orgy. Best post? Daily Kos || Oh good, he accepted.

Phew!

6. Jay Rosen gives us the blueprints to deconstructing message-speak, and saves us all a headache. Extra points will be given if you can correctly deconstruct the dialect of message-speak but also translate it to any of the five languages that Teresa Heinz-Kerry speaks.
PressThink: PressThink's Critical Viewers Guide For Tonight's Speech

What to do? After the contribution of any pundit or expert ask yourself: what is it that I am supposed to do with that information just given? If you actually try to answer it--instead of assuming there's nothing you can do--it will shed some light on what you were just told.

5. From conventioneering insights, goofy photo-caption contests to blogging scandals, is a blog supreme:
The Blogging of the President: 2004

The Convention is so aggressively energetic and takes so much energy that something about it is meaningful. It's like an antivacation, where you feel a new perspective, but totally unrefreshed. The news cycle seems smaller, less important while I'm here. Gathering 35,000 media and political people in one place, aside from the inherent power in large groups, does something in that it makes every one of those go through this experience. It's tribal, almost, creating a common linguistic currency.

4. Short and sweet posts called "Best line of the night" at Rox Populi :
Rox Populi : Best Line of the Night

Another toss-up tonight. It's either:
I want an America that relies on its own ingenuity and innovation – not the Saudi royal family.

or

What if we have a president who believes in science, so we can unleash the wonders of discovery like stem cell research to treat illness and save millions of lives?

3. Best photo-moment of the whole convention:
The Power of Many: The Jerry Springer show

It sincerely cracks me up.

2. The IMish blogging of Pandagon: Liveblogging Edwards is the best, and I mean, THE BEST example of what collaborative, liveblogging should look like. Commenting, blow-by-blow, through IM, add style as visual aid and BAM! Blogging as a conversation ---and isn't blogging a conversation after all?

First divergence from prepared text? Complimenting Theresa's excellent speech from last night. We're starting with family, particularly a paean to the values imparted by his parents . They're the "the values John Kerry and I believe in, and nothing makes me prouder than standing with him in this campaign".

J.J. Goodness on the speech tip here. To give a completely inane remark to begin, do Edwards' shirtsleeves seem too short for his arms?

Kerry is a product, and now he's Edwards' product. The amazing thing about this entire convention is that it's fundamentally been set up to carefully integrate campaign themes from the past few months - for the first time in a while, I feel as if there's a party message about the candidate, and about the party in general. It's not a long-term policy/political venture for the next few election cycles, but it could turn into something great for 2004.

The Dems are also being very clever about attacking the GOP. They're keeping the references very vague, but we all know who they're talking about. It's a message to the base while at the same time appealing to the middle by giving a sharp slap on the nose to The Bad People.

We all think Kerry chose Edwards because Johnny is so great. It doesn't seem that way to me -- I think he chose him because Edwards makes him sound so great.

And now we're moving to the optimist. "They are doing all they can to take this campaign for the highest office in the land down the lowest possible road.

1. Jeralyn Merritt hits it right out of the park. Her writing is outstanding, vivid in imagery yet succint in detail. When I read her posts, I feel like I am there. These are going to be invaluable "snapshots" of this historic convention.
TalkLeft: The Hall is Packed

We just got back with our double strength espresso. We're wired and ready to go. This hall is packed to the gills. There are people sitting in the stairwells. Getting out now would be next to impossible. For the first time, we bloggers are all hunched over our computers and the gabbing has stopped. The delegates are listening to the speakers.

Joe Biden's speech is too long, but they don't care. They are standing and clapping. When we think Biden, we think Rave Act and how he snuck it into the Amber child alert bill. We wouldn't support him for dogcatcher. We can't even fathom that he was almost a contender for President. But, the people here seemed to really like him.

All of these are more than just reporting at it's best. They go beyond journaling, reporting and memorializing. What we have in these blogs is definitely a new form of expression and witnessing. Even, maybe, a new literary form.

So who's on your list?