For over 3 years, I've followed the Daily Kos religiously, typically checking the site 2-3 times each day to stay on top of the latest developments. Thanks to Kos and his many brilliant, articulate and passionate kossacks, I have found it to be a refreshing island of sanity in what Maureen Dowd has aptly characterized as BushWorld. But until now, I have not posted a single comment or diary entry. A few days ago at YearlyKos 2006 I discovered that this meant I was a "lurker" (Who knew?). I was, however, somewhat relieved to find that I was not alone. Scattered amongst the many veteran bloggers who came together in Las Vegas were scores of fellow lurkers.
YearlyKos was a great opportunity to meet numbers of like-minded people who want to take back our country. Early on, as I introduced myself and described my background to new friends, I was puzzled to hear several say, "Oh, you're a lurker." This was a new term to me but in the context of our conversation I soon understood. Later, during one of the breaks, I overheard one veteran blogger say that she had encountered a number of lurkers and wondered why we had come to the convention. Speaking for myself, it was a no-brainer. The timing was perfect. The agenda compelling and the opportunity to connect with others who felt as I was simply to much to pass up. This former lurker was reporting for duty.
The pressure to end my lurking has been building for some time with each new outrage, with each new failure of Republican-controlled government and with each failure of the mainstream media to properly hold them accountable. Until recently, I've been more or less content to do the usual "good citizen" things - I vote; I contribute to worthy candidates as well as the DNC; I write an occasional letter to my elected officials and a few other Democratic leaders; I try to stay up on current events; and my wife and I frequently discuss the issues of the day with our friends and family.
While my high school civics teacher might be pleased, I am not. I have an overwhelming desire to do more. But exactly what? This is the question I've been mulling over for some months. I have long considered adding my voice to the blogsphere but this too is not enough. We are not going to take back our country unless we can translate our ideals and beliefs into concrete actions that yield tangible results, specifically the election of a progressive majority.
I went to Las Vegas (as I suspect other fellow lurkers did) to find a meaningful way to engage in this cause. It was a fabulously inspiring experience. I met dozens of the 1,000 kossacks participating and found them to be as smart, as knowledgeable and as passionate as they are on-line. What great people! It was also interesting to see that as a group, we pretty much looked like a cross-section of Any Town, USA representing a wide range of backgrounds and demographic groups. It occurred to me that for each of us who were fortunate enough to attend, there are undoubtedly thousands of others across the country who feel the same as we do.
I attended as many of the workshops and panel discussions (Science, Energy, Labor, Economy, and Education) that I could in three days and found them to be highly informative. It was a great privilege to be able to see Wesley Clark, Bill Richardson, and Tom Vilsack on their respective panels as well as Barbara Boxer, Howard Dean, Mark Warner and Harry Reid. All delivered engaging presentations that were much appreciated. I also had an opportunity to have 1:1 discussions with several congressional candidates including Charlie Brown (CA-4) and Robert Rodriguez (CA-25).
The congressional district (CA-14) that we live in is solid blue so I have long believed that any volunteer work that I might do locally would be largely meaningless. As a result of attending YearlyKos, I now have an idea how I might be able to make a worthwhile contribution to the cause: by enlisting friends in our area to support progressive candidates in neighboring districts aiming to dislodge Republican incumbents. A number of people at the conference gave me some suggestions on this and identified a few specific information resources that might be useful. I need to do more research and work out the details but I feel that I'm definitely on to something here. Any other suggestions would be greatly welcomed.