‘Net Roots’ Event Becomes Democrats’ Other National Convention
Last month, in a straw poll on the popular liberal blog Daily Kos, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), the front-runner for her party’s presidential nomination, won only 9 percent of the vote, lagging far behind former senator John Edwards (N.C.) with 36 percent and Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) with 27 percent. She couldn’t make it past 4 percent for most of the year.

But as the who’s who of the progressive blogosphere — the “Net roots” — gather in Chicago for the YearlyKos convention, which started yesterday, Clinton will be there. Her attendance underscores two seemingly contradictory realities: blogs’ growing influence as powerful backroom players in Democratic circles and the fact that they don’t reflect the views of most Democrats, much less the general public.

A friend of mine is in town for this – need to get in touch with her if I can. I sometimes read bits of Daily Kos, but she’s involved with one of the teams that “rescues” diaries that have fallen off the main screen that deserve a wider reading. I wonder what she’ll think of this article and the “don’t reflect the views of most Democrats, much less the general public” statement. In general I think that’s pretty accurate but I think the dKos people do reflect an accurate amount of frustration with the war, just not an accurate assessment of what to do about it.

I’m a little surprised at the lack of support for Clinton primipara (to differentiate from Clinton infidelum), but the anti-war groups that are probably dKos’ audience really can’t stand Hillary. This seems to be because of her pre-war support for the invasion of Iraq, and she’s been trying to overcome that netroots’ anger for some time.

My husband David can’t stand Hillary for another reason; he thinks she doesn’t deserve to run for President because he doesn’t see her election as a Senator from New York as terribly valid. He keeps saying she bought the seat and the New York State Democratic Party was more than happy to bend residency rules for her to run in the primary (if that’s what really happened). I go around and around with David on this, because the people of New York elected her, and they could have voted for another Democract in the primary if they wanted to, and they seem to be happy with her; her job approval rating is 74%

We both like Obama, a lot. But we worry the nuts in this country.

[tags]dKos, YearlyKos, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama[/tags]