Hillary Will Attend Yearlykos Netroots Convention

Today Hillary Clinton's campaign announced she will attend the YearlyKos convention this August, the official annual gathering of the progressive netroots. Writing in a diary at DailyKos, Clinton Internet Director Peter Daou said he was "happy" to announce that Clinton planned to attend the convention. "I'm looking forward to being there as well -- last year's was great and I'm sure this time around it'll be even better," he added. The 6-line post drew over 390 comments.

Clinton is the last major Democratic candidate to confirm her attendance at the convention in Chicago. Edwards, Obama and Richardson confirmed in May, and Clinton's delay led some bloggers to question whether she was "afraid" to address the netroots directly. (Last month, one Kossack diarist even posted a sarcastic poll asking whether Clinton was skipping YearlyKos because she was "terrified" of bloggers -- or because she was simply "too good" for bloggers.) Today YearlyKos organizers seemed delighted with Clinton's attendance, distributing a press release about the addition. "Our goal is to provide a citizen-driven forum by truly democratizing the discussion and providing a meaningful role for regular citizens and grassroots movements to engage, vet and judge our country's potential leaders," said
Gina Cooper, a former high school teacher who runs the convention.

It is striking that a two-year-old grassroots convention held far from Washington can draw so many Democratic presidential candidates, along with other party leaders and tons of progressive activists and writers. (I spoke at last year's convention and have been invited to return this year. I'm also collaborating on a related project, which I'll write about next week, and The Nation has provided minor support to this year's convention.) In short order, the convention has established itself as a required stop on the presidential campaign trail. The New York Times basically predicted this trend last year, noting that Yearly Kos "seems on the way to becoming as much a part of the Democratic political circuit as the Iowa State Fair." And while Hillary Clinton does not openly court liberal bloggers very often, she has clearly decided she would rather live with them than without them.

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Ari Melber writes for The Nation, where this post first appeared.

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