American Dreamer: The Big Tent's vast left-wing conspiracy
Steven T. Jones and Kid Beyond are driving to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, stopping by Burning Man on the way there and back, reporting on the intersection of the counterculture and the national political culture.
By Steven T. Jones
The Big Tent, which is the central hub for bloggers and progressive activists here in Denver, offers more than just free beer, food, massages, smoothies, and Internet access. It offers up the amplified voice of grassroots democracy, something finding an audience not just with millions of citizens on the Internet, but among Democratic Party leaders.
New media powerhouses including Daily Kos, MoveOn, and Digg (a Guardian tenant in San Francisco which sponsors the main stage in the Big Tent) have spent the last year working on the Big Tent project with progressive groups in Denver, many of whom have offices in the Alliance Building, the parking lot of which houses the Big Tent (a simple wood-framed floor, stairs, and decks above it, covered by a tent).
“This is where we have the people on the ground doing the work on progressive causes,” said Katie Fleming with Colorado Common Cause, one Alliance Building tenant. “It’s been a year in the planning. The idea was having a place for blogs to cover the convention,…It’s a way for us to all come together for the progressive line that we carry.”
But it’s really more than that. It’s a coming together disparate, ground-level forces of the left into something like an real institution, something with the power to potentially influence the positions and political dialogue of the Democratic Party.
“When we started doing this in 2001, there just wasn’t this kind of movement,” MoveOn founder Eli Pariser told me as we rode down the Alliance Building elevator together. “The left wing conspiracy is finally vast.”
I arrived at the Big Tent yesterday afternoon and picked up my press credentials, which one needs to enter the complex. But because I’m with the traditional media and not a registered blogger, I needed an official escort to enter the blogger lounge, where I found Beth Murphy, marketing director of Digg, working on her computer.
“Just as Digg stands for the democratization of information on the Internet, we feel this tent helps in leveling the playing field across the media covering this convention,” Murphy told me.
Digg sponsors the second floor stage and some town hall meetings dubbed Digg Dialogue, in which political leaders field questions generated by the Digg community. Their first guest was to be Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday evening at 6:30.
On Tuesday, Arianna Huffington was among the notable visitors to the Big Tent, speaking from the Digg Stage about the obligations and failing of today’s journalists. “Our highest responsibility is to the truth,” said the founder of the widely read Huffington Post blogger hub. “The truth is not about splitting the difference between one side and the other. Sometimes one side is speaking the truth…The central mission of journalism is the search for truth.”
As for me, it’s time to get out there and search for some more truth.
P.S. While checking my e-mail in the media lounge on the fourth floor of the Alliance Building, I finally heard back from Mayor Gavin Newsom’s people about my week-old request for tickets to his “Unconventional ‘08” party tonight, which is sponsored by PG&E and AT&T.
“Due to the high volume of submissions, we were unable to process your request at this time. If tickets become available we’ll send you an e-mail and SMS text with details,” it said. Unable to process my request? And this is the guy who wants to be governor? I plan to go anyway and see if I can crash the party, backed by my publisher’s promise to bail me out of jail if I get arrested. Wish me luck.
P.P.S. SF-based Code Pink has had a pretty strong presence in town, marching and unfurling banners that read, “Make Out, Not War.” Member Barbara Briggs-Letson from Sebastopol was outside the Big Tent and told me, “We’re here to keep peace on the table and part of the discussion.”
She had just come from outside a high-priced gala featuring Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton at the Sheraton hosted by Emily’s List, a big funder of female candidates. Journalists were barred from covering the event (as they are from many of the parties where the rich court the powerful), “so the press was out with all of us and the police.” I suppose that’s another way for street-level activists to get the media’s ear.
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