Update from New Orleans

So, here's what's going on, and it's not an unusual story.

The wifi at the hotel is just awful, and the only thing keeping my voice from coming apart is the occasional application of 1) bourbon or 2) moonshine being handed out by the Mississippi delegation (Danny Bedwell for US Senate!). Between those two things, podcasting just isn't in the cards.

I've tried to blog a few high points here and comment occasionally over at Independent Political Report, but realistically between the Internet and actually doing convention stuff, I am getting back to my hotel room worn out and posting these short updates.

I wasn't present for ALL of the bylaws work, but my impression is that both that and the platform work have generally been positive. High points on platform were 1) adoption of the immigration proposal that I've been belaboring for a year or so now and 2) adoption of the new plank on sex work.

That last one seems to track a general party trend that I will just describe using one of the slogans I'm seeing and hearing:

FUCK RESPECTABILITY POLITICS

There's a shift in the party that this convention is bringing to light. It is, in my opion:

1) A distinctly leftward shift; AND

2) A distinctly populist (real, not peckerwood populism) shift; AND

3) A shift toward understanding that we will never, ever, ever displace the two old parties by trying to figure out how to look exactly like the two old parties.

Those are all good things. I'll plan on writing about them more ... after I get home and have two monitors, a full-sized keyboard, and the kind of time I don't have while being a Libertarian conventioneer all day long.