I’m at the airport well in advance of my flight to leave Netroots Nation, and thought it overdue to check in, since I’ve been so quiet all week.
This year’s Netroots Nation–the fifth (I’ve attended all of them)–felt utterly familiar, like a family reunion only without any of the fights about politics. FDL had a good contingent (as has probably been obvious): given that we do so much work together remotely, it was great to spend time with Rayne, Gregg, Michael Whitney, David Dayen, Lisa Derrick, and Jon Walker. And I enjoyed spending good time with Rosalind, Bob Schacht, and Garrett.
Just as important seeing the increasingly few people trying to return our country to the rule of law. In addition to the great people on my panel: Jerry Nadler, Vince Warren, Matthew Alexander, and Adam Serwer, people like Daphne Eviatar and Jason Leopold were there (and I’ve not spent much time with either before), as well as more folks from ACLU and CCR. Jeremy Scahill would have been at my panel–except that his conflicted with mine (though we did get to spend some time together).
And then there were all the discussions about where we go from here. There was a bunch of discussion about several things: how we put the teacher funding back into the war supplemental–we have no business firing teachers to pay for war (yeah, then there’s the big question of whether we have any business at war in Afghanistan). There were lots of discussions about the economy generally. And there was near unanimity (well, maybe downright unanimity) that we need to make sure that Elizabeth Warren gets the Consumer Financial Protection Agency position.
In fact, one of the highlights of the trip this year was meeting some of the best women in politics. I got to meet Warren, who is every bit as much a rock star in person as she is on teevee. I spent some time with Linda Chavez-Thompson, talking about what she will do when she wins her election to be Lieutenant Governor of Texas. And, as you’ll see on Monday once I’ve transcribed everything and written it up, I had the opportunity to talk to Nancy Pelosi (and Jan Schakowsky) about intelligence reform. It’s pretty damned humbling–and inspiring–to get to spend time with such a collection of women heroes.
There’s a lot more I’ll hopefully write up over the next few days. But for the moment, I head back home once again remembering that this bloggy politics thing is all about community.