So can bloggers actually play a meaningful role in field campaigns? Or are we just a bunch of dudes sitting in our parents’ basement complaining about things with our cheeto-stained fingers?

As a blog and as folks who are interested in (and often are participants in) field campaigns, we’re very interested in this question, which is the topic of the Yes We Did? How Blogging Can (and Can’t) Support a Field Campaign panel here at Netroots Nation. The panel includes Californian Pam Coukos (femlaw on Calitics), is moderated by Sean Quinn of Fivethirtyeight.com,  alongside several other bloggers and activists who have stories to share from the 2008 campaign cycle. The Twitter hashtag for this is #ywd.

I’m going to liveblog this over the flip.

But not before reminding folks that the California crisis panel, including David Dayen, Jean Ross of the California Budget Project, Kai Stinchcombe and yours truly, will start at 3 in room 317. You can see more about our panel here and view the live stream here. You can also ask questions of the panel via twitter, with the hashtag #cabudgetnn09.

Sean Quinn introducing the panelists. Most bloggers don’t set foot inside a field office, need to bridge the divide between field and online.

Janice Caswell from NY talking about going from Daily Kos to volunteering offline. This raises an interesting point about how blogging plays a key role as a gateway drug for political activism. It socializes people into the political world, lets them know of opportunities, makes them feel comfortable with getting involved.

Much of this is about people inspired by the Obama campaign to get engaged in offline politics. There’s a lot of frustration out there about the failures of the Obama Administration, but it’s worth reminding ourselves of what was accomplished in 2008, and how it actually did bring a lot of new people into politics. Hopefully that will last.

Katherine Haenschen, friend of Calitics and writer for Burnt Orange Report, talking about how blogging is deeply linked to broader political activism and movements.

Pam Coukos talking about how pseudonymous commenting is freeing, but that one still gets drawn into the political world and wants to share themselves with it.