In a surprise announcement Thursday night, organizers of the Yearlykos netroots convention say Hillary Clinton has canceled her scheduled meeting with attendees on Saturday. Clinton is still scheduled to appear with other presidential candidates at the convention's leadership forum, but she will be the only candidate skipping the meetings with activists afterward. In a last minute change, organizers said the Clinton Campaign would send Ann Lewis to speak with attendees on Clinton's behalf
The announcement, made just after Howard Dean's keynote address, drew boos and immediate complaints from attendees, who were asked to select which candidate they wanted to meet with during registration this morning. It also comes at an odd time for Clinton's netroots outreach strategy, since her campaign recently sent top spokesman Howard Wolfson to defend the convention against attacks from FOX's Bill O'Reilly. DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas praised that effort earlier today, telling reporters at a the convention's opening news conference that he appreciated Clinton's effort to "defend the medium" from "right wing attacks." Moulitsas also said he thought Clinton had started to demonstrate that she would "listen" to the netroots "when making her decisions."
Meanwhile, Senator Chris Dodd picked up where the Clinton Campaign left off, battling Bill O'Reilly on his Thursday show to defend YearlyKos.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ari-melber/hillary-folds-as-yearlyko_b_58978.htmlthis was blogged by a Kossack who was going to attend Hillary's break out session:
When we showed up at registration for YK 07 (awesome, by the way - wish you were here) we had to choose whose breakout session we wanted to go to, and get a colored wristband to allow us access: yellow for Hillary, orange for Obama, etc.
Well, my mom and I, we're not Hillary supporters. We're not really supporting anyone at this stage - we're foolishly hoping for Gore, but listening respectfully to everyone else. And neither one of us really wanted to end up in the Hillary camp.
But here's the thing. She's kickin' ass. Her campaign is a machine, and she's really showing she knows her stuff in the debates
http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/8/2/22048/43933