Dispatch from the Desert 1: Netroots Nation is cranky

Carla Axtman

I've only a few minutes between stuff I'm supposed to attend..but the mood here at the Netroots Nation conference in Las Vegas is, to sum it up: cranky. The folks who attend this shindig are the most active of the activists, and they're pissed.

I get the sense that much of it is due to a lot of disappointment over President Obama, not even so much on policy (although that's part of it, certainly), but a lack of strong pushback against right wing memes and bullying. A capitulation, I suppose, to the messaging and media crush that comes out of the conservative machine.

There are a whole host of other issues cranking people up as well and I hope to sit down later tonight or tomorrow and try to get them pulled together as a post. But there's some anger brewing here that is untapped and un-channeled. And it's getting little to no attention relative to the teabaggers.

Like a stealth bomber...waiting to be launched.

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    Rep. Jefferson Smith spoke at a panel on progressive change in state policy. I'm fairly certain it was streamed live on video - and will be available online early next week. When it is, we'll post it here at BlueOregon.

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    I don't see how attacks on a Dem. president by the left wing tea-bag crowd really helps that much. They just love to blame everything on him. I think that crowd misses GWB. Life was so sweet when they had him to complain about. Governance is so boring and so impure.

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    Van Jones gave the right response to the netroots lefty tea-baggers today: Grow up! http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/07/van-jones-to-netroots-quit-beating-up-on-obama.php#more

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    A lot of us would argue that the pushing from the left is required to counter the unavoidable fact that every time Obama turns his head he has Jim Messina and Rahm Emanuel swinging from either ear. It's all politics and no policy for those guys.

    They are the Mark Penns of this administration, and their slicing and dicing does progressivism no good, as in, "Ms. Sherrod, you have to resign right now, from your cellphone, because Glenn Beck comes on at 5:00......."

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