AH YES, I REMEMBER IT WELL – AT 10:04 A.M. ET:  Do you remember – oh, it was about five years ago – when the Netroots convention was a big deal on the left.  All the big liberals sucked up to the Netroots crowd, led by the radicals of the Daily Kos.

Well, times have changed.  The Netroots are still there, but a good chunk of the clout is missing.  From the Washington Examiner:

Today, I am blogging live from Netroots Nation in Providence, Rhode Island, a political conference for liberal bloggers that used to be a must-attend event for Democrat candidates and elected officials.

Back in 2007, the conference (then called YearlyKos) drew the three major Democratic presidential candidates; Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama. Before the midterm elections in 2010, the Netroots Nation conference drew then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who held question-and-answer sessions with the audience. Sen. Al Franken also wowed the crowed together with several sitting Democrat congressmen.

But this year, there are very few prominant elected Democrats present who are speaking at the conference. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island is here of course, as the conference is being held in his home state - also speaking on a panel is Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

The biggest name, it appears, is Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic candidate for the Massachusetts senate seat running against Sen. Scott Brown. Although Warren was losing her voice, she ginned up the most enthusiasm from the group during this afternoon's keynote luncheon panel on the "War on Women." She was the only speaker to get a standing ovation from the audience, during the event.

And...

...after watching a panel about the Wisconsin aftermath, it was clear that activists are discouraged about their political defeats. The leaders there were no longer talking about "getting the message out" but discussing their ability to "get the messaging right" in order to unite the grassroots and appeal to the electorate. One of the panels was titled, "How Progressives Get the Narrative Wrong and How to Get it Right."

COMMENT:  You know you're in trouble when your only speaker to get a standing ovation is Fauxcahontas, or Liewatha, or whatever she's called today. 

Oh, Howard Dean did appear, and compared Mitt Romney to Ahmadinejad.  We'll let it pass.  We're sympathetic to the agony of the deranged. 

Maybe most Dems have figured out that a bunch of fringe characters with computers and no solutions are not the key to the American heart.  Is the White House listening?

June 10, 2012