Today is Olivia’s fourth birthday, so as pretty much everyone at the convention I talked to knows, I headed back to Houston early today, and thus missed much of the action, including Chelsea Clinton’s keynote address and Rick Noriega’s speech and press conference – you can get video of the former here and text here, with a recording of the latter here. But that’s okay. I went to Austin with three things in mind to do, and I did all three of them: Have fun, meet lots of people, and interview candidates. I’d have liked to do more of the third one, but I’ll get a second chance at some of them in July for Netroots Nation. The ones I did do, look for them to be published over the next two weeks or so.
I met way too many cool people to have any hope of enumerating them, but I’ll give a few shoutouts to State Reps. Rafael Anchia, Trey Martinez-Fischer, Roberto Alonzo, Marc Veasey, and Veronica Gonzalez; fellow bloggers and activists Josh Berthume, Julie Pippert, Susan Shelton, and Steve Whichard; media folk like Elise Hu, Carolyn Barta, and R.G. Ratcliffe; and many familiar faces, also far too numerous to name. By far, this is the best part of the convention experience; had I done nothing else, it would have made the trip worthwhile.
Plenty of my fellow bloggers will be picking up the slack of convention coverage – see BOR, Capitol Annex, The Texas Blue, and the various media pros, like Brandi Grissom, the Trail Blazers, and PoliTex, among others, for all the details.
I’ll try to have my pictures up tomorrow; in the meantime, Muse, Miya, PDiddie, and Charlie have theirs, while Karen Brooks offers her take. Last but not least, can someone spring for Pink Lady to get a pedicure? Thanks.