Everywhere I went on Sunday and Monday, folks were on message. It’s about green jobs, it’s about energy security, it’s about innovation, it’s about getting out of Iraq, but mostly, it’s all about energy. And whether it was Ken Salazar or Sugarland or Van Jones, it circled back around to our children. We have to protect the environment and make these changes because we have a responsibility to our children and the generations that follow.

So as I was walking past the Pepsi Center yesterday, it struck me as beautiful kismet that the median strip was engraved with a traditional Kenyan proverb that was amazingly on message: “Treat the earth well, it is not inherited from your parents, it is borrowed from your children.”

Turns out, it’s by design that the parks are on board with the week’s messaging. Turns out Denver’s been doing a full refurbishing of the parks around downtown gearing up for the convention- apparently getting on board with the themes of the convention. An encouraging notion that goes towards my post yesterday that these themes and these priorities are not Democratic ideals, they’re American ideals that need Democrats for support these days. This is a redesign that will long outlast the convention and will be a part of the Denver face and identity for years to come. It’s not partisan, it’s not divisive ideology, it’s about our responsibility to future generations and our fellow man.

This is certainly relevant to many of our challengers in California. From Charlie Brown to Debbie Cook to Russ Warner to Nick Leibham and beyond, they’re running not on divisive partisanism but on the basic right and wrong of these issues. This is the beautiful side of running on unity and unifying issues: it’s really easy to make sense when you talk to people.

I’m sure I’m going to get an earful about unity tonight from the evening’s convention speakers, but after months of being a little burned out about the unity talk, I’m a bit more into it. Not the conciliatory-at-all-costs brand of unity, but the sort of unity that comes from cutting through all the rhetoric to arrive at what’s simply right and necessary.

I mentioned yesterday that this- like any political convention- is heavy on the self-congratulation. That’s what conventions are for, so it’s not a failing, it’s just a way of being. So one of the few measures from inside the insanity is how the non-true believers react. And so far…it’s really encouraging.

A lot of ink was spilled today about former GOP congressman Jim Leach speaking at the convention right now. But it goes well beyond that to exhibit the good side of a truly big tent (as I write from the Big Tent). The Republican mayor of Fairbanks will be speaking too, which is great for folks like Mark Begich and Ethan Berkowitz running as Democrats statewide in Alaska, but it runs well beyond that.

I was at Red Rocks last night for a show that included the country band Sugarland. I’ve never heard of them because I’m an elitist liberal ivory tower egghead, but they rocked the crowd and went over very well. But in contrast to all the other musical acts I’ve seen so far, there was no overt political rhetoric between songs and definitely no mention or remote endorsement of the Democratic party. But they were there, and there enthusiastically, in support of green jobs and the fight against global warming. Because going green and being responsible simply is not a partisan issue anymore. It’s a moral issue that transcends partisanism and simply divides responsible and irresponsible.

Beyond all that though is the reaction on the street level. I’ve been to mini rallies, fundraisers, receptions, parties, whatever at local restaurants and bars in downtown Denver. On a regular basis, the waitresses and bartenders are applauding strongly progressive speeches from bloggers and candidates. As Dave noted in an earlier post, Denver is a strong Democratic city. And that’s fantastic, but it certainly doesn’t preempt the many McCain yard signs I’ve seen outside of the general downtown area. There’s simply no guarantee or expectation that the staff at a given venue will be inherently sympathetic.

But our message is getting applause from the bartenders. Whether it’s universal health care, green collar jobs, or the Responsible Plan, it says something when the bartenders clap. I’ve been in and around the back of bars for a few years in my life, and bartenders are not the most easily swayed of political targets. Our message isn’t simply the Democratic message. What we’re seeing this week is that the Democratic message and the Obama message is the American Dream in action. Partisanship can and will fall by the wayside when the message gets out.

Those of us in the netroots and grassroots are tasked with getting it out.

Earlier today I attended a panel called “Who’s Leading Whom?” exploring the role of blogs in political media.I was there with Todd Beeton who wrote it up here. It was moderated by Arianna Huffington, and the panelists were Chris Cilliza of WaPo’s The Fix, Greg Maffei of Liberty Media, Digby of Hullabaloo and Jonathan Alter- Senior Editor and Political Columnist for Newsweek.

Whether by design or not, much of the conversation centered around the extremism on blogs and particularly in the comments. Maffei commented several times that the nature of the internet lends to infinite commentary and thus potentially waters down the value of what’s found on political blogs. I don’t dispute the first part of this, but finding a readership demands that what’s being written carry some sort of value. There’s a meritocratic aspect that’s often overlooked by purveyors of traditional media no matter how well they understand (or sometimes don’t) the nature of blogging. Cillizza and Alter both repeatedly blasted the quality of comments on blogs (there’s specifically) but failed to address the reason: blogs from widely known news outlets which don’t moderate comments turn in to magnets for extremist and disruptive comments. It’s perhaps understandable then that both would have a negative view of the comment aspects of blogs and tend to judge the broader notion of a blogosphere based on these experiences. But neither had any notable exposure to communities of commenters, rating systems, etc. which serve as an effective check on the more counter-productive comments.

In the same vein, Alter and Maffei in particular noted that the infinite space online leads to the purveyors of vitriol and extremists on both sides of the spectrum rising to the top. Aside from the fact that I don’t think that’s accurate, nobody managed to note that the exact same thing is true of newspaper opinion columns and especially the punditocracy on cable news. For the most part, nobody gets a steady stream of repeat gigs if they don’t stir the pot. Whether they have anything accurate or constructive to say is secondary. So this criticism of blogs completely falls flat as far as I’m concerned, no matter how much these folks are commited to defending the honor of traditional media.

Finally, the most compelling part of the discussion for me personally was the discussion regarding what the inherent role and nature of blogging might be. The traditional media folks (Maffei and Alter) consistently hammered on the quite accurate point that actually finding news requires time and money that bloggers generally don’t have (with a number of very good exceptions of course). It reminded me immediately of the Google campaign from 2006 in which I noted essentially “I don’t want your job.” I speak for myself only here, but I’m not aspiring to be a reporter in the traditional sense. I’m just not. I’m here to make sure that the people who ARE here to do that, do it responsibly. Arianna Huffington talked about the notion of ‘hybrid’ media- the collision of blogging and newspapers, tv news, etc. and I agree that’s the direction things are heading. As the resources available to bloggers grow, the more they’re able to do original reporting. At the same time, traditional outlets are increasingly moving online- Cillizza is an excellent example. The fundamental issue here is exactly what Digby noted: “The traditional media lost its credibility because the traditional media lost its credibility.” Blogs didn’t do it. Iraq and everything that followed did it. The lack of skepticism did it. Blogs pointed out what had already happened and Digby nailed it.

Coming out of this discussion, I think the question going forward is one that hits both blogs, traditional media and what Arianna called hybrid media. It came out of a question from Ari Melber of The Nation and centered on the line between the responsibility for media to report truth and the need for media not to insert their own values into their stories. It’s something that everyone on the panel touched on at various points in the discussion, and certainly a tough line to find. My concern, and I think a concern that was borne out in the discussion, was that media members are generally more inclined to carefully avoid opinion at the expense of truth. That’s not going to cut it, and it’s a problem that we have to collectively figure out going forward.

There’s a certain absurdity to flipping out over Jim Lehrer. He’s made his entire career out of never demonstrating any emotion whatsoever, yet when he walked down the street last night near the Colorado Convention Center, he left a wake of slack-jaws and excited cell phone calls. This is what happens at political conventions. The least likely heroes emerge and particularly on the Democratic side, the great unwashed activist base gets to stand on the VERY SAME street corner as Jim Lehrer.

All that cynicism aside, it’s still a lot of fun while it lasts. The free food and booze and hospitality will elicit no complaints from me. Establishment and contr-reform folks can fete me all they damn well please- it almost feels like stealing since I’m simply not going to be more inclined to buy or support Coors in the future. And the good guys, well…I’ll try not to particularly suck up their free stuff. The panel discussions and other stuff that’s actually good FOR people don’t kick off in earnest until tomorrow, so until then it’s just good old fashioned American indulgence.

The entire city, not surprisingly, has found endless not-so-creative ways to capitalize and commodify things. Which makes sense since a convention is an exercise mostly in pomposity and gluttony of the mind, body, and soul anyhow. Everyone gets to feel special for a week, nothing happens that wasn’t expected to happen, the junkies are excited about seeing their political idols, and by the end we realize why the networks aren’t so interested in broadcasting conventions anymore.

But if you’ll excuse me, I think there’s another reception about to start.

Late on Friday, word broke that a lawsuit had been filed over Ken Calvert‘s most recent shady land dealings. As the PE reports, “The Jurupa Area Recreation and Park District is suing the Jurupa Community Services District, charging the water and sewer agency with fraud and deceit in connection with the 2006 sale of property to Rep. Ken Calvert and his partners.”

This is centered around California law requiring that all government land coming up for sale first be offered to other government agencies. In this case, the Jurupa Area Recreation and Park District wanted this land for new development, and had for several years before the sale. Instead, the 4 acres was sold directly to Ken Calvert for a cut rate, circumventing the Recreation and Parks district. They were, to put it mildly, miffed.

A Riverside grand jury has now determined that the land deal violated state law, clearly the way for this lawsuit to proceed. Calvert, for his part, is no stranger to this or other exceptionally shady land dealings in his district. In exchange for his preferential (and illegal) treatment in this deal, Calvert delivered for Community Services board members prime access to members of Congress in order to lobby for water project funding. Water projects that just so happen to directly benefit the property that Calvert bought illegally.

That is, Calvert received an illegal sweetheart deal from the Community Services District, then brought the board members to DC and hooked them up with other Congressmembers to get water projects for the property they sold him illegally.

Calvert of course has a long-standing record of corrupt dealings. So much so that even the right wing blogosphere flipped out about another corrupt Congressman being appointed to the appropriations committee back in 2007. Back in 2004 he was running around Saudi Arabia with Duke Cunningham (R-Tucson Federal Correctional Institution) and unindicted co-conspirator #3 aka Thomas Kontogiannis. He also pushed through more than $90 million in earmarks for a lobbying firm now under federal investigation (so is Calvert and Jerry Lewis for that matter). He’s also pulled down earmarks of $1.2 million for transit improvements around seven of his properties in Corona.

Just another in a long line of Calvert fleecing the public to line his pockets. Perhaps what we’ve come to expect from the modern GOP, but Calvert has grown so comfortable that he’s not worried about bringing Dick Cheney in to fundraise for him. Dick Cheney. Who absolutely nobody likes.

Bill Hedrick is looking to send Calvert a wakeup call this year.

[Updated with “Chicken Dinner” photos]

Dave noted today in the quick hits that Brian Bilbray‘s refusal to set foot in the district to debate Nick Leibham will be met with Bilbray chicken sandwiches and a campaign volunteer in a chicken suit. Now we have yet another example of Bilbray refusing to go anywhere near the people he’s supposed to represent.

The Men’s Club of Congregation Beth Israel in the 50th district had, until recently, been working on putting together a town hall for both camps. But via email comes the news that the event “had to be cancelled because of the lack of participation of the Bilbray campaign.”

Ouch. It’s one thing to be out of touch, it’s quite another to flat out refuse to acknowledge or engage your constituents. Bilbray is terrified of his record and knows full well that it’s dramatically outside the mainstream of the district and the country. So his strategy is simply to hide and hope nobody notices. Not only is he chicken, but he’s insulting the intelligence of every voter in the district by taking up this strategy. The “maybe nobody will notice I’m selling the country down the river” notion is flat out offensive and should be a devastating embarrassment.



If you’re too chicken to face the voters, it might be time to double check exactly what the heck you’re doing in Washington. [Update] I should also mention that the GOP “drill now, who cares if it’ll work” cabal who are holding sham sessions in the House aren’t doing so hot. One has already lost a primary because he was in the pocket of big oil and others can’t stay interested long enough to miss their golf outings.

(a few more pics on the flip)