This morning, I woke up early to go to the Energize America 2020 panel. There was far too much information to replicate here — you can see the details of the plan on their site — but as I said earlier, what’s remarkable is that such a collaborative project has produced such a solid, practical plan. And the openness of the process is not some add-on, it’s part of the core principles guiding the project. Read through the plan — it fills enormous gaps in the energy policy debate, around public transportation, efficiency, smart grids, and financial instruments to encourage renewables. More from DarkSyde at dKos here.
Then came my panel on global warming politics. It went smashingly. The crowd was much larger than I expected — I’m no good at such estimates, but I’m guessing there were about 100 people, one of the bigger panel crowds I saw all weekend. Brad (the Cunctator) live-blogged panel here. What impressed me most is that even though the panel got fairly far down in the weeds of politics and policy, the crowd was totally attentive and engaged. The questions in the Q&A were smart and perceptive. One of the points I made is that global warming doesn’t get the attention it deserves in the netroots, but at least among this core group, there’s a great deal of passion and smarts.
One point I tried to make sure everyone left with: Coal is the … say it with me! … enemy of the human race.
Then I went to a candidate forum with Hillary Clinton. The crowd was huge and fairly enthusiastic. She got a softball question on education and basically filibustered going on for about 25 minutes in great and boring detail. After that were a few tough questions which she handled gamely. She’s very politiciany.
Then it was off to the candidate forum where all the candidates took part. It was, relative to the usual televised presidential debate, incredibly lively, with lots of back and forth between candidates and some riproaring answers. All the candidates played basically the roles they’ve been playing — I doubt anybody moved the needle much one way or another, except John Edwards, who has become full-throated and utterly unapologetic in his liberalism. The crowd loved him.
Then it was off to a candidate forum with Barack Obama, which I mentioned earlier. Dude is schmooove. It’s hard to resist his charm when he turns it on, especially with small crowds.
Now I’m off to dinner with the Castens. Lordy I can’t wait to hit the sack tonight!
