Sleazy Lobbyists and Drunk Bribocrats: Why am I at the DNC?

Posted by Matt Stoller, Open Left at 4:07 AM on August 27, 2008.

Last night I happened upon a DLC Chairman dinner with Harold Ford, and it was just another reminder that this convention is not really built for people like us. Sleazy lobbyists coming out of the event were sloppy drunk and the slender blonde running the event slurred her words to me that those sponsors are the ones paying her salary. Harold Ford then came out, and I ended up standing in front of his SUV and taking flash picture after flash picture just to make it a little less pleasant for these kinds of conservative bribocrats to attend this convention.

There are a lot of meetings going on, and that's one reason to be here. The media is here because it's their prom. But in terms of raw power dynamics, progressives are not particularly relevant. Hilariously, bloggers have actually been demoted; in 2004, we could actually see the stage at the Fleet Center, this time, online communications director Aaron Myers has secured us a room in the Pepsi Center with televisions in it.

My general belief is that, while the Obama world is not the Bush world, we're not allies. They believe in elite consensus governance, using terms such as 'civility' and imposing liberal-ish policy ideas from academics. We believe in polarization and populism, and in fact our very power and capacity on the internet emerges from conflict and polarization. That difference comes out in lots of flashpoints big (FISA) and small (blogger credentials), and my guess is that next year it's going to look like an utter trainwreck.

Matt Stoller is a political activist/blogger in DC, and was an editor at MyDD from November 2005 until June 2007. He also consults for the Sunlight Foundation, FreePress.net, and Working Assets as well as proactively networking other progressive bloggers/internet activists and progressive professionals.