Vice is virtual for the online inclined

LIBERAL bloggers proved at least one thing during the YearlyKos convention in Las Vegas last week: They can handle the city’s Friday night challenge. I’ve covered plenty of conventions here -- gatherings of skeptics, libertarians, abstinence activists, adult entertainers, jugglers and young Republicans -- and I’ve noticed that, on Friday nights, they experience a substantial drift toward the entertainments of Sin City, making for a slow start to Saturday morning’s business.

Yet, most of the more than 1,000 progressive bloggers gathered June 8 to 11 at the Riviera were present when Democratic party leader Howard Dean stepped to the podium at 8 a.m. Saturday to address YearlyKos (the name comes from the popular website Daily Kos). The attendees packed the tables in the convention room, laptops open, and filled the rows of chairs in the back. They were all business. No one wanted to fritter away what the progressive blogosphere considered a watershed event -- its first gathering out here in the real world.

People have the impression of a blogger as “someone sitting in their pajamas at a computer with no social skills, who has no desire to leave their house and orders everything from takeout,” said Shanna Ingalsbee, 43, who works for a business-management firm in L.A. by day, and served as the convention’s volunteer coordinator. “But in reality, that is not the case. A function like this dispels that myth.”

Well, maybe to a degree. Sure, they were out of their houses, but plenty of them didn’t leave the Riviera. In fact, they seemed much more interested in one another than in even the big-name speakers eager to court them (Dean, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid) or, especially, the host city. “I think we are interacting more with each other inside the hotel than we are with Vegas,” conventioneer Justin Krebs said. Krebs is a founder of Drinking Liberally, a group of progressives who meet in bars. “We wanted to mix politics and socializing.” Drinking Liberally numbers 145 chapters nationwide, although, perhaps curiously, not in Las Vegas.

TURNS out YearlyKos didn’t pick Vegas as a convention site because of its selection of nightclubs, strip clubs, bars or other diversions, as is the case with so many conventions. “We chose Las Vegas for the cost,” Ingalsbee said. “We were more concerned with what we were able to produce than where we were producing it. There are a lot of people who do not like the city of Vegas, but they came here specifically for this convention.”

“I didn’t personally come here with some plan of action,” said John Aravosis, of Americablog. “For me it was a chance to get to meet my readers.” He had hoped to check out the Bellagio fountains and do other touristy things, two days into the convention he had yet to leave the hotel. “I have been so busy with the schedule, I haven’t been outside of here yet. I haven’t seen Vegas outside of here.”

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, whose Daily Kos website gave the conference its name, said he had another motive for steering clear of too much Las Vegas. “I have to stay away from the blackjack table, because I get in front of them and I turn into Bill Bennett.” The reference, of course, is to the famous conservative’s onetime infatuation with gaming in Vegas.

Zuniga, though, said: “They could have this conference in Duluth and I’d be here.”

Then again, Duluth might not have afforded the same opportunities for those who did want to cut loose a little. “I drank liberally until 3:30 in the morning last night and was up at 7:30. We’re only in Vegas for four days. We have to live it up,” said Krebs.

SO even though many didn’t leave the convention, Krebs still felt the Vegas vibe was having a subtle effect on the attendees. “Las Vegas provides a certain remove from reality. Las Vegas is so new to us I think we all huddle together a little bit more. The landscape is so foreign and unfamiliar that it helps build the solidarity. It is like we are on a spaceship somewhere.”

At a party at the Riv hosted by Drinking Liberally, Aravosis argued: “It is the Republicans who are telling you how to live your life. The Democrats are the last people who should be saying, ‘That town is just a little too much fun.’ Now Republicans are the ones who want big government to control everything you do, and Democrats are the ones who don’t. It is a flip.”

It is the kind of eccentric viewpoint that the blogosphere specializes in. It is also one that is attracting an audience. According to Aravosis, his blog averages 100,000 visitors a day. Daily Kos is even more popular. That’s not an insubstantial audience. “You are the vanguard of real change in America,” Dean told the bloggers, an impression bolstered by the contingent of mainstream media dispatched to cover YearlyKos. Aravosis, Zuniga and other well-known bloggers were given the rock-star treatment by attendees and reporters alike. At last, the blogosphere was being accorded some respect.

So leave it to a resident of this unreal city to inject a note of reality. Unity and the media spotlight are fine, said Hugh Jackson, whose Las Vegas Gleaner is Nevada’s best-known progressive blog, but that’s only a start.

“Yes we have growing political influence,” he said, “but what I hope comes out of this thing is a growing acceptance among the advertising community that this medium has matured. There has to be a realization among advertisers that this is where they want to be, because content costs money. Reporting costs money. It wasn’t discussed a lot at the conference because everyone was enamored that the politicians and media are taking us seriously. I think that is great but the next step for the medium is for advertisers to start to take us seriously.”

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For more on what’s happening on and off the Strip, see latimes.com/ movablebuffet.