Florida bloggers and netroots unite!

Just came from the luncheon provided for the netroots and bloggers by the Florida Democratic Party at their Jefferson-Jackson Weekend, where I met folks like Ken Quinnell of the Florida Progressive Coalition, the husband-and-wife team that are Tampa Bay Democrat, Ray Seaman of FLA Politics, and gatordem of Florida Kossacks and others. We also were greeted by party chairperson Karen Thurman.

Most of the luncheon was devoted to a discussion of the upcoming state party convention in October, which will take place at Disney's Yacht and Beach Club Resort in Lake Buena Vista. Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend, as I'll be at my 20-year college reunion, but it nevertheless was a useful discussion today. There certainly is a need for a better understanding by the party on how best to use the netroots and the blogosphere, and it's a very good sign, for example, that we have been given special blogger credentials to hear Speaker Pelosi and others at tonight's dinner. (Regrettably, the banquet room doesn't have wireless Internet access, so my plans to live-blog probably will have to be curtailed. I'll try to figure something out ...)

We also talked about the need for bloggers to interact more directly, and to that end, I'm going to work on a piece I've been meaning to add to Blast Off!, namely, a separate blogroll for Florida progressive blogs. Stay tuned. Done!

I don't believe I'll have much of a chance to actually meet Speaker Pelosi, but I hope I'll have easier access to Sen. Nelson, who also is speaking tonight. Perhaps I can ask him why he voted to support torture ...

More to come ...

UPDATE (6:38 pm 6/11/07): Thanks to Ron Mills at Change in Tallahassee for the picture.