I’m safely back in Big Sky Country after an amazing three days at Netroots Nation in Las Vegas, the city that never sleeps. There were almost as many people in the Rio’s casino at 4AM when we left for the airport as there were at 10PM when I hit the sack, unfortunately skipping the DailyKos party at the House of Blues. There’s only so much fun I can take anymore!
Of the four YearlyKos – Netroots Nation conferences I have attended, this may have been the most intense. There were dozens of incredible speakers from Van Jones to Madame Speaker Pelosi to Senator Al Franken, not to speak of my very own Gov, Brian Schweitzer. It will take a while to mentally process all the new stuff I have learned and to turn some of it into useful political action, but for now I think it’s worthwhile to just reflect and mention the great speakers of NN Day 2 and NN Day 3. (for a photo diary of NN Thursday Night, click here).
All photos are from Mrs. Ed in Montana (copyrighted too), who enjoyed it almost as much as I did. She didn’t get photos of every speaker, and some just didn’t come out well, so this is not a comprehensive list. So here goes. Enjoy!
NN2010 Day2 Friday
It was another broiling day in Sin City, with temps near 110 degrees F. I still can’t get over the view of the Strip to the east of the Rio from our 15th floor hotel room.
Governor Howard Dean introduced the first speaker, Van Jones, with a recorded message. This was the first Netroots Nation-YearlyKos convention that the good Gov has not attended in person.
Van Jones gave probably the best talk of the conference, for me at least. Here’s Mr. Jones being interviewed by Ari Melber, from The Nation magazine.
Van Jones message (being repeated by many of the speakers this year) is that we need to promote the revitalization of America with green collar jobs. It takes some thought to get your head around how we need to get this to work and rebuild America’s middle class.
Mr. Jones also stressed that it is up to us to keep hope alive and not sink into self-defeating cynicism. We didn’t come all this way to give up now!
Unfortunately, we didn’t get any shots of the excellent talks at lunch for the Civil Rights in the Modern Era speakers. Tim Wise was particularly impressive, reminding the audience of how much damage racism has done to many progressive issues and people in the last half century.
Netroots Candidates Forum
I am continually impressed on how many unknown candidates show up at Netroots Nation asking for our help, many of which will go on to positions of national importance. We have a good chance of seeing Senator Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania this November, and I remember when he showed up at the first YearlyKos in Las Vegas in 2006, asking for support for his first congressional run. Here’s a sampling of this year’s hopefuls, with their websites.
Jack Conway for US Senate in Kentucky is taking on Rand Paul.
Elaine Marshall for US Senate in North Carolina is taking on in her words, the last piece of Jesse Helm’s legacy, Senator Richard Burr.
Rodney Glassman for US Senate in Arizona is taking on the soulless corpse of a former statesman, John McCain. I just hope he can defeat the Zombie Senator!
Scott McAdams for US Senate in Alaska is challenging Senator Lisa Murkowski, who is only slightly less rightwing than Princess Sarah. Mr. McAdams is mayor of Sitka, and is a great guy from my brief conversation with him.
After the Netroots Candidate’s Forum, it was time for the Chariman’s (Adam B) Pub Quiz at McFadden’s Bar. Here’s our quickly assembled team pondering our strategy.
The pub quiz consists of three sets of 12 frequently fiendishly obscure political and pop culture questions, like this one.
Here’s Carla, the team’s scribe, waiting for the rest of us to make up our minds so that we can turn the next set of answers in.
We gave it our befuddled all, but finished way back in the pack. I’m still deaf from the noise level that evening in the bar!
NN2010 Day3 Saturday
Probably the most jam packed day of talks, Saturday started out with Ask the Speaker. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a long time friend of Ms. Pelosi, introduced Madame Speaker.
Speaker Pelosi started out with a short talk, and then introduced a member of the administration that couldn’t attend.
President Obama in his pre-recorded personal message to the convention, hit some familiar themes and asked for the Netroot’s help in completing his legislative agenda. The President left it up to a familiar progressive figure to summarize his administration’s accomplishments to date.
The clip from a Rachael Maddow Show earlier this year did a good job of listing the President’s wins and losses. The President left us with a call to help maintain the democratic majorities in the House and Senate.
Speaker Pelosi then sat down with Cheryl Contee from Jack and Jill Politics for a wide ranging discussion of legislative issue questions submitted online and written by the audience.
I found the Speaker’s answers to be much less evasive and more substantive that at the previous Ask the Speaker Session at Netroots Nation 2008 in Austin, Texas. It is pretty amazing the amount of work that has gotten done in the House this session, especially when compared to the deadlocked Senate.
Building a Progressive Economic Vision
This series of lunch speakers was one great speech after another, and I can only cover a few of them here.
Elizabeth Warren led off with a great concise talk on the enormous accomplishment, signed this past week in the financial reform bill, of establishing a Consumer Protection Bureau. Ms. Warren outlined the responsibilities and the possibilities of creating this new digital agency. Like Ed Schultz on Thursday evening, Ms. Warren never stood still for a moment for Mrs. Ed to get a good picture! She is truly an incredible person dedicated to help rebuilding America’s middle class.
No one has done more work in rebuilding the middle class than Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, one of Netroots Nation sponsors.
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Mr. Trumka gave an eloquent talk about the promise and reality of green jobs.
With a green energy infrastructure manufactured in the USA.
Mr. Trumka used this famous graph showing how the federal deficit is ballooning due to Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy and unfunded wars, not President Obama’s economic stimulus efforts.
Take that bush apologists.
Representative Alan Grayson (D-FL) took the stage to describe what steps will need to be taken to truly rebuild the American middle class.
Some of those steps he mentioned should include real pensions for retirees that have worked for thirty years (not 401Ks), and federal mandate for sick leave and annual vacation. The United States is one of the few developed nations that doesn’t require employers to give workers annual vacation or sick leave. "We are not slaves" Grayson commented.
Rep. Grayson’s sardonic wit was very evident throughout his presentation.
Ask the Majority Leader started out with Mcjoan reminding the crowd that Senator Harry Reid had been one of the first elected officials to plan to come to the very first YearlyKos convention in 2006.
The Majority Leader gave a thoughtful but troubling talk of how difficult it has become to pass any legislation due to republican obstructionism.
Any and all bills for the last year have had to meet a cloture vote recording 60 supporters, a process that takes at least five legislative days or more before a final vote can be scheduled. And that’s five legislative days when next to nothing at all is getting done in the U.S. Senate. Essentially, a small minority of right wing extremists have hijacked our democracy and are close to negating the results of the 2008 elections. And I’m not sure the democrats are doing enough to stop it.
The Majority Leader sat down with McJoan for a short period of questions and answers.
In an incredible emotional exchange, Senator Reid acknowledged that Lt. Dan Choi was in the audience, and had just been terminated from military service under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Senator Reid promised to right the humiliation visited upon Lt. Choi by his government, and Lt. Choi saluted the Majority Leader. At this point Mcjoan offered Senator Reid Lt. Choi’s West Point ring, with Choi’s permsission, for the senator’s efforts in recognizing the service of LBGT veterans. Senator Reid responded that he had not earned this service ring and offered it back to Lt. Choi. The crowd shouted that he keep it until DADT is repealed and the Senator agreed.
I have often thought that Senator Reid is not as forceful at times as I would want a majority leader to be, but Harry Reid is one of the most basically decent human beings I have ever met, and this incident confirms that belief.
The Saturday Evening Program was another whirlwind of great speeches, starting out with Chuck Rocha, a union organizer who had helped out with Lt. Governor Bill halter’s campaign against Senator Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas. I am really glad that guys like Rocha work on our side and we don’t have to battle against them!
Then there was the candidate for Lt. Governor in Texas, Linda Chavez-Thompson, another old time union organizer that had the crowd on their feet many times. A truly amazing woman who had grown up working in the cotton fields of West Texas and is willing to take on the Texan republican establishment.
Adam B introduce Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) from Tucson.
Rep. Grijalva is head of the Progressive Caucus in the House and has lead the effort to repeal Arizona’s odious law allowing unreasonable searches and seizures of "suspected" illegal aliens.
I can’t help but think that we would not have had such a festering mess with the Mineral Management Service if Rep. Grijalva had been chosen by President Obama as Secretary of the Interior rather than the more conservative and passive Senator Salazar.
Stephanie Schriock, now head of Emily’s List introduced Senator Al Franken. Ms. Schriock had worked on Governor Howard Dean’s 2003 presidential campaign, and had run John Tester’s and Al Franken’s successful senatorial campaigns. How’s that for an interesting campaign resume?
Senator Franken’s presentation was excellent with his dry humor and his perceptive analysis of our current political predicaments.
Essentially he said, if we don’t do something about media consolidation and the results of the appalling Citizens United Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited coporate campaign spending, we can kiss our democracy goodbye.
The Senator even snarled at some conservatives, but I was laughing too much to remember who.
In closing Senator Franken invited everyone to his home turf of Minneapolis Minnesota for Netroots Nation 2011!
UPDATE: Thanks for the rec list recs folks! I remember some of the many events I left out was the Netroots for the Troops care package drive.
The NRFTT organizers did a great job in getting materials and people together to assemble and ship 300-350 packages to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was honored to play a small part in the effort on Saturday.