That doesn't explain why this crowd is less excitable, though. Chalk that up to the lack of presidential candidates (most of them showed last year) and the bitter struggle for the nomination raging whenever the attendees flip open their Powerbooks. (Nothing will flare up your Mac Envy like a liberal convention.) This year's conference is less about politicians than than 2006 or 2007. The speakers are mostly authors and organizers, either wine-track bloggers or beer-track union types.
The first panel I attended was billed "The Crackup of Conservatism," and up on the podium were liberal pundit Cliff Schechter (very popular on the web for his flame-throwing style on mid-day cable news hits) and author Rick Perlstein, who's about to publish his sequel to the brilliant Barry Goldwater/conservatism history Before the Storm. I settled in for some Bush administration gravedancing, and then Perlstein gave a powerpoint presentation about "toxic trade" and handed the mic to Mike Zielinski of the United Steelworkers, who blistered free trade deals and corporate influence in politics. "We could make a T-shirt," he said. "My job went to China and all I got was a baby-bib-laced-with-lead."
Mark Hemingway caught the latter part of the panel, which shifted back toward partisan politics:
Schecter began his speech by announcing "John McCain is a jackass," and closed his remarks by announcing "Conservativism today is theocracy, oligarchy and permanent war," so you know you can look forward to reviewing his other salient and scholarly opinions in his forthcoming book on McCain.This is true: There was a 1 in 100 chance the Democrats would draw an electable opponent in this Year of Republican Doom, and they did.
Still, Schecter expressed great concern over the damage done by the infighting between Barack and Hillary's infighting given McCain's relative strength, adding "If it were Mitt Romney we were running against we could all sit back and eat barbecue for six months and still kick his butt."