Bloggers are involved on the real life political scenes, with our laptops, cameras and video recorders. Our presence is real news. There were so many mainstream media reps filming us, recording us and photographing us. The bloggers actually have paparazzi!

Why is it news? Blogging offers egalitarian empowerment. It brings citizens into the political process in powerful and influential ways.

Blogging has already reinstated the original and truest spirits of "freedom of the press" and "freedom of speech." Many of our elected representatives are finding, some to their dismay and others to their delight, that engaged citizens are paying closer attention to campaigns.

Participation in citizenship might, in fact, be as easy as publishing one's opinion or observations. By writing publicly, bloggers are able to build consensus with other ordinary citizens. At the very least, bloggers give us food for thought.

In so doing, we also avoid being taken for granted or being ignored in our increasingly complex and segmented society. We are able to hold our nation to its vow that all voices should be represented even though voices of ordinary people have been silenced, muffled or drowned out.

In the worst of times, we can serve as our own insurance against tyranny.

In the best of times, we can effectively hold our government and each other accountable as we strive to actualize our highest ideals.

For more info about our convention blogging team and what we were doing in Denver, check out this great newspaper article from last week, this press release from earlier in the summer, and this blog post from a week ago.

To do a tag search of all the current blog posts at this site covering the Democratic Convention, just click here! And, lastly, you might wish to check out this NPR radio interview about blogging from Denver that features "yours truly" at the tail end.

It's all good stuff.

In the coming years, blogging will reach greater and greater importance in all levels of political life. And all of us, readers and writers alike, will say we were there in it's infancy.

I'm proud that our site, Everyday Citizen, was one of only 55 blogs credentialed to hold full floor privileges and press credentials at this year's Democratic National Convention.

I am grateful to each and every Everyday Citizen writer for taking the time to blog - and, in so doing, allowing all the rest of us to share in each other's citizenship and activism. With every new blog post I see appear here, written by one of our engaged citizen journalists, I smile a big smile.

And, with an average of over 1,200 visitors every hour at this website, I know I'm not the only reader at EverydayCitizen.com that's grateful.