A nod to blogs
Boston — High up in the rafters of the FleetCenter they sit, watching tiny Democratic politicians take the postcard-sized podium. Illuminated by the glow from a bank of laptop computers are bloggers Ezra Klein, 20, and Jesse Taylor, 21.
They might be stuck in the nosebleed section at the Democratic National Convention, but at least they're here.
For the first time ever, the Democratic National Committee awarded about 35 political bloggers credentials to the big show. That official recognition gives blogs -- short for Web logs, an online media format slippery to categorize -- a sort of establishment legitimacy. The DNC even launched its own official blog. (And the Republican Party has invited 10 to 20 bloggers to its own convention next month in New York City.)
"The Democratic Party wants to look at blogs precisely because we have something they want to capture," Taylor says, referring to the thousands of loyal readers many blogs attract. Here from Columbus, Ohio, Taylor is the official blogger for talk-show host and former Cincinnati mayor Jerry Springer's Democratic outreach efforts in that state (www.jerryforohio.com). "They're treating us as a form of new journalism and a campaign tool," he says. "It's kind of weird
Taylor and Klein, who met face to face for the first time this week in Boston, are themselves trying to make sense of their unexpected vantage point from -- for this week, at least -- the center of the political universe.
Partners on their political commentary site Pandagon.net since November, the slightly snarky duo are amused and amazed that they're getting celebrity treatment from the Democrats. The party reserved a spot for the mostly liberal blogger contingent inside the hall itself, rather than exiling them to the media tent outside, and threw them a breakfast Monday morning that featured the convention's keynote speaker, Barack Obama, and former presidential candidate Howard Dean, among others. On Wednesday night the bloggers were feted at a swanky bash thrown by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, where E.J. Dionne and Janeane Garofalo mingled with the technorati.
"They're trying to put their best foot forward, cater to us, make us feel like stars. It's getting ridiculous," says Klein, a political science major at UCLA.
But Taylor has his suspicions about the spotlight. "I also feel, in some ways, we're here to give the press something to do," he says.
