After midnight, after Ned Lamont had left the Four Points Sheraton ballroom’s confetti-strewn floor, one of the national politicians who helped him pull off his remarkable upset against Joe Lieberman in Tuesday’s Democratic senatorial primary walked down the hall to pay homage to the raucous crew she believes has rewritten the rules of American campaigns: the bloggers.
The politician was charismatic California Congresswoman Maxine Waters. She visited Connecticut three times in recent weeks to shepherd Ned Lamont through urban black neighborhoods to build support for his ultimately successful challenge to three-term Sen. Lieberman.
Waters walked in on the celebration and manic keyboard-clicking going on in the “blogger” room at the Sheraton, a room separate from the more sedate, supposedly neutral “media” room for mainstream press reporters. A cottage industry of local Connecticut and national liberal bloggers sprang up around the Lamont campaign. It built the early support, helped frame the message, elicited thousands of volunteers and donors, and dogged Lieberman’s every step.
Upon Waters’ approach, the blog room erupted in cheers. Then a hush spread among the bloggers, excepting for the clicks of digital cameras.
“Do you know what you have done?” Waters asked them. “You have upset the status quo, for real. You have given me faith that change is possible.”
Her parting message: “Keep on blogging! You’re gonna change the world!”
Videotaping Waters’ impromptu tribute was a 26 year-old London filmmaker named James Rogan. Rogan has been following the Lamont-Lieberman race for a documentary he’s producing for BBC and the Sundance Channel. Like Waters, he came to see the bloggers as the story.
“What I set out to do,” he said, “was frame a really important political debate that’s going on in America right now between the so-called netroots and the moderate establishment. I was interested in the clash of values.” He said he encountered a passion and commitment among the blogggers and others drawn to the Lamont campaign that contrasted sharply with the Lieberman camp, whose supporters emphasized their “familiarity” with their candidate.
Rogan, a self-described moderate, was surprised to find himself “battling” with Lieberman’s staff for access to the campaign. That changed in the past week “when the Washington people came down for Lieberman. People returned our phone calls and dealt with us with respect. When the bus tour started, it got better.”
Also watching the scene in the blog room — and deserving his share of the kudos — was “CT Blogger“ (pictured), among the hardest-working and more talented homegrown bloggers who came into their own on this campaign trail. He was an omnipresence at both Lamont and Lieberman events, sometimes working both still and video cameras and posting copiously on his site
He preferred to remain anonymous — until now. “Now the primary’s over, you can print my name,” he said. He’s Alfonso Robinson. He’s 37. He lives in Danbury.
Also soaking in the moment were the national bloggers, some of whom, like MyDD‘s Matt Stoller and Hollywood producer Jane Hamsher (pictured) of Firedoglake, camped out in Connecticut and provided some of the best scoops along with their passionate posts.
In a conversation back outside in the hallway, Maxine Waters elaborated. She said she sees “a new way of progressives connecting through blogging” that will “change the Democratic Party. What we’re seeing is a determination by young people and bloggers to make the Democratic Party stand up for the values of the Democratic Party.”
She said that in her visits to Connecticut she “really wanted Ned to understand there was a lot of potential support out there in the African=American community. Many in the African-American community do not support the [Iraq] war. We got attention from the bloggers. We didn’t get attention from the mainstream media.”
“We’re going to see a new Democratic Party,” she concluded. “I can feel it in the air.”