"an invitation"

Chairs in the main hall (for delegates) were littered with pamphlets "inviting" fellow Liberals to "Collaborate Online". Not sure if this is offical party effort to steer folks away from blogging or weblogs...They also may want to determine who is actually a Liberal member, as liblogs is an honour system. Anyhow, here's the link:
http://forumliberalcanada.org

if I were a betting man...

Odds To Be Next Leader Of Liberal Party Of Canada
Bob Rae 3/2
Stephane Dion 2/1
Michael Ignatieff 7/2
Gerard Kennedy 5/1
Ken Dryden 200/1
Joe Volpe 300/1
Scott Brison 400/1
Martha Hall Findlay 500/1

from: http://www.pinnaclesports.com.

turning my back

On of the Liberal bloggers posted a picture of me being interviewed by the media this morning in the "bloggers" room...
http://devin-maxwell.blogspot.com/

Chant index

Kennedy's supporters are the loudest...hands down.

bloggers room

The party has set up a room for bloggers where a half dozen guys are typing away (me being one!). The conversation bounces from Liberal politics to blogging issues. There is no overt signs of partisanship or arm twisting.

Jason Cherniak is launching some new features for his 'liblogs' network: a bilingual template, a news section, and a list of young liberals writing blogs. No mentions though of videos, photos or other formats.

Iggy hotel

After liblogs, arrived at my hotel to find that is Iggy central. By all accounts it was the party to be at, especially for young Liberals and drinkers. I was told that Kennedy's party was where all the serious politicos were going...though no-one could tell me where it was. Rae was no where to be seen. Apart from top tier candidates, there were few signs of the so-called "also-rans".

Iggy puts out his flashy daily flyer...it lands on my door step firs thing in the morning. There's the man, holding a "Who's going to beat Harper" sign...oh and apparently I was at the "Iggynation" party last night. He highlights links to youth and women's commission and notes that he has 1150 Facebook.com friends.

first thoughts

Since I arrived at the convention at 11pm, initial impressions were defined by the parties. But before that...on the flight in I saw a quick clip from the Howard Dean speech, which was surprisingly dead boring. Delegates confirmed it was a snoozer.

@ Trudeau Dion had a kiosk with two very keen looking politicos with oversized T-shirts staring me down... I went directly to the party sponsored by Jason Cherniak and "Liblogs" -- a friendly group of folks. Few signs though of tech geeky--ness, except for an older delegate looky very wobbly on a segway in the corner of the room (odd). Who were the bloggers?

The hotel also seemed to be the headquarters for Dion, but might be wrong on that one. Dion was the only candidate to show up, while I was there at least, but apart from one photo-op with delegates, Andrew Coyne (National Post) seemed to have a bigger crowd around him. Met up with Cherniak and "A BCer in Toronto" and was told that Calgary Grit had 'come out the closet'. Apparently Stephen Taylor, head of the 'blogging Tories' is also cruising around the convention.

check back for daily updates

I will be posting daily updates to our recently released blog and news analysis of the Liberal Leadership Race. We will be looking at how much coverage each candidates receives and how bloggers (friends and foes of the Liberal party) will be commenting on the convention and race.

@ Liberal Convention

Hi folks, I'll be in Montreal late Wednesday night for the convetion, so will miss Howard Dean's keynote unfortunately, but am looking forward to meeting some folks and taking in the scene. I will also be discussing the findings from our (infoscapes) recently released report on bloggers, issues, and news coverage of the leadership candidates. email me for meet ups.

Infoscape Research Lab releases final report on Liberal Leadership Race on the Internet

To download a copy of the report please see: www.infoscapelab.ca/gritrace