Media Channel

CHICAGO - Who would have guessed that the most compelling debate of the already-too-long 2008 presidential slog would highlight probing questions from the likes of a guy named “John Pontificator”?

A most revealing thing emerged after 90 minutes of a presidential forum here Saturday at YearlyKos - the political convention attended by liberal bloggers and activists from across America, including a large Philly contingent:

A bunch of enthusiastic amateurs such as the pseudonymous blogger Pontificator can stage a more compelling debate than our professional news media.

The change was clear just two minutes into the thing when New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson blurted out, “I screwed up,” in response to a focused but probing question about Supreme Court nominees from moderator and blogger “mcjoan” - Joan McCarter, a former congressional aide with a master’s degree in international relations.

Before the seven Democratic candidates - all save Delaware Sen. Joe Biden - had finished their cattle call not far from where Chicago’s stockyards used to be, the seemingly unflappable Sen. Hillary Clinton appeared, well, flapped at one point over taking money from lobbyists.

And in response to Pontificator’s query, all seven Democrats committed to hiring a White House blogger. Ex-Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel - the crusty Howard Beale of the ‘08 race - even said he’d do it himself.

That ringing endorsement of the art of blogging was appropriate, because although some sparks did fly between the front-runners this weekend, the real winner in Chicago was not any one candidate but the 1,500 once-isolated progressive activists who had long toiled - often on a lonely keyboard in the middle of the night - to get the inside-the-Beltway Democrats to listen to them.

YearlyKos is an outgrowth of Daily Kos, a political Web site that started with California founder Markos “Kos” Moulitsas’ political frustration during the run-up to the Iraq war and now attracts more than 500,000 visits a day, more than most metro newspaper Web sites.

In the process, Daily Kos has been hailed by some Democrats for revitalizing the party and helping it recapture Congress, and demonized by conservatives such as Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, who’ve accused the open-to-all site of extremism and anti-American views.

That argument is already becoming a tired one, but perhaps the most surprising thing I picked up during a couple of days here was the way that these passionate political junkies with a pointed view have been able to outshine all the other presidential debates of the overcharged 2007 pre-season.

I’m talking about the debates anchored by blow-dried professional journalists so caught up in the often-phony frenzy of the 24-hour news cycle that they’ve lost touch with what real voters care about.

Indeed, a low point of the entire White House race so far came in June, when Wolf Blitzer prodded the same Democrats about a half-baked JFK Airport “terror plot” from the Caribbean that was a real threat only in the minds of a few headline-seeking U.S, attorneys, and a few ratings-starved producers at CNN, where Blitzer works.

The much-ballyhooed YouTube debate - with everyday citizens asking questions on video - was an upgrade from the “pros,” but many of the videos dealt with broad topics, giving candidates lots of room to dodge.

Chicago showcased what politically obsessed amateurs can accomplish. And what bloggers often do best is work the “micro” elements of political debate, finding the statement that doesn’t jibe with known facts or past remarks.

So it was that moderator McCarter hit Richardson off the bat with his comment that his ideal high court justice was the late Byron “Whizzer” White, a judicial foe of abortion rights. Richardson felt he had little choice but to say that he “screwed up” - the kind of admission we haven’t seen in other well-scripted debates.

Of course, many of the bloggers at YearlyKos were updating at every spare chance, and one of those who did - New York University journalism prof Jay Rosen - captured the spirit of these new kinds of citizen journalist/activists. “Bloggers aggregate attention to politics,” he wrote on his blog, Pressthink. “Therefore they get attention from politicians. The press lives off politics, these Kossacks live for it.”

One small detail was the most telling. At most televised debates, the audience is warned to remain silent, a metaphor for the bloodless nature of the event. The YearlyKos partisans were instead encouraged to lustily cheer - or boo, as they did when Richardson called for a balanced-budget amendment, anathema to most liberals.

Mostly, though, the Kos convention crowd did cheer, not just in agreement with progressive red meat such as slams on Vice President Cheney or the new nemesis O’Reilly, but because they were so happy that these seven - a group that includes one yet-to-be-determined person they think will be the next resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. - were paying attention to them.

YearlyKos’ choice of Chicago proved to be an ironic one. The debate was held just 20 blocks north of McCormick Place, where protesting liberal activists and radicals sought the attention of the Establishment in 1968, and the Establishment responded with nightsticks. In the 2000s, angry progressives could hurl political rocks through the newfangled window of cyberspace.

This time, 39 years later, the Democratic Establishment responded by listening. *