RMSzero and I took a road trip to Hooville this weekend to weigh in on the state of political blogging in Virginia. I wore my VT regalia just in case anyone assumed I was a hoo loyalist. The experience was interesting, amazing and hilarious.

Meeting people from the i-net in meatspace always creeps me out, and this experience was no different. I met Waldo, Rick Sincere, Norman, John and a would-be delegate from Fairfax but who in fact had lost her race. We pointed out to her that NoVA sucks. Oops. I also saw some of the dudes from SicSemper but they peaced out after lunch and I didn’t get a chance to talk to them. Also, I think Waldo’s mom may be hot. Just a thought.

When RMS and I arrived we picked a table that soon became the kid’s table — a mostly college aged table. The whole event was kind of like a middle school dance in a way, with people acting polite and awkward. “Awesome” and “Amazing” would be two words I would use to describe it.

Things discussed:

What makes up a good government. Interesting to see what people thought — especially the libertarian-to-the-max guy and the (possible delegate?) guy from south west Virginia who’s every argument began with “When I talk to people in the Country Store…”

Campaign finance laws and regulations. A fellow by the name of Scott(or Chris?) Piper gave an interesting presentation on the laws that apply specifically to political bloggers. If you run a blog, pay more than 200$ for hosting, and encourage people to vote for or against a specific candidate then you are required by law to report your hosting fee as a campaign contribution. Learning is fun. I think in general the room was full of outrage — which was kind of silly. Luckily the gov’t only counts actual money as a contribution, not time. So fear not Haduken.com readers.

The Virginia Way. Then a guy talked about the Virginia Way™ what that means. I learned that Governor Byrd sux0rz’d.

Blogger code of ethics. A proposed universal — at least to Virginia — blogger code of ethics set off the best discussion of the day. I think the room was split down the middle between people who feel like self-regulation is one step down the road toward government regulation and people who thought self-regulation would add to blogger legitimacy. Given the huge spectrum of blogs — even within the political blogs genre — the specifics of a universal code of ethics would be difficult if not impossible to nail down. But I think I could get behind a graduated code of ethics, much like the creative commons copyright. As long as the least restrictive version was something like “When I use sources I will cite them” or something similar.

Afterwards we had a great conversation with John from Church Hill People’s News. He is an awesome dude and we are going to get beers sometime.

So there you have it. My thoughts on the first Virginia Political Bloggers Summit. Jim Bacon of Bacon’s Rebellion (best named blog ever) has news on a follow-up conference:

The Creative Change Center in Richmond has offered to host and organize a follow-up blogging conference if there is any interest in one. I see this conference as being very hands-on, digging into the nitty gritty of blogging operations. I’m very open to any suggestions of topics to be addressed, and would welcome the participation of anyone who would like to play an organizing role. Communicate through this blog or by e-mailing me at jabacon@baconsrebellion.com.