Martinsville.
For months I've dreaded making the trip for the "Blogs United in Martinsville" conference. Of course it's critical for the Webb campaign to have a representative there, and for Raising Kaine to have a presence, but this is Lowell's Job. I've got programs to launch, volunteers to coordinate, events to staff. Hell, I haven't blogged a hundred words since taking over as Volunteer Coordinator for the campaign. Lowell's the Net roots Coordinator. He should go, but he doesn't want to. I may never forgive him.
Besides, this event was created as an act of pure partisanship, as a direct rebuke to the way the 2nd Annual Sorrenson Summit of Blogging and Politics in the Commonwealth was handled. My close friend and long time compatriot Waldo Jaquith of Charlottesville was excoriated by right-wing bloggers because of what they saw as his exclusivist approach to his conference. Right or wrong, the right side of the VA blogosphere rebelled. They didn't show up for "Waldo's Conference", and now they expect me to support their obviously mean-spirited power grab?
How am I supposed to get behind this?
The real reason I finally decide to go is Will Vehrs. An early scion of the Va Conservative blogosphere, Will combined wit and insight to help lift up such seminal VA political blogs as Bacon's Rebellion and later Commonwealth Conservative. Then, a political firestorm forced him into exile.
Will is my kind of guy: real, decent, smart. He was one of the first VA bloggers I read regularly, and, in many ways, I modeled my style after his. He was a community builder, and that's my mission too.
So I finally agree to go, since Lowell won't. Martinsville looms like a lion's den ahead of me. I dread it.