AUSTIN, Texas—By Sunday morning, most of the speakers and bloggers attending the Netroots Nation convention had gone home. In preparation for the convention's final key note—a plenary on "eco-equality"—volunteers in the convention center's gaping main exhibit hall distributed leaflets against various outrages ("No Forced Vaccination" or "Put Impeachment Back on the Table.") Ed Madej, a digital cartographer who blogs on the Daily Kos under the name Ed in Montana, sat alone at one of the tables blanketed with such fliers, checking weather maps on his laptop for any possible disturbances on his way home to Helena.

Under jumbo screens featuring freeze-framed poses of panelists talking about "marketing and monetizing your blog" or taking "online engagement to offline activism," or Howard Dean lecturing in an open-collared shirt and tan jacket, Madej offered his own impression of this year's convention.  read more »

Perhaps despairing of the continuing interest of the traditional media in his office's entanglements with Joe Bruno, Eliot Spitzer has opened up a new public relations front.

He recently posted on the Huffington Post and on Daily Kos, speaking, in theory, directly to one of the most motivated and active parts of the Democratic base (which notably hasn't rushed to Spitzer's defense over the trying past few weeks).

A spokesman for Huffington Post said that they reached out to Spitzer after hearing that he was giving a major speech, and confirmed that yesterday’s item was his first post there.