There's no doubt Hillary faces some hostility in the netroots. I've had several reporters ask me whether Clinton has "reached out" to the netroots, to which my answer is, "no". "Ahh", think the reporters, "So what Hillary needs to do is 'reach out' more and all will be well, right?"
Nevermind that "reaching out", in political terms, seems to mean "have a meeting with Markos", which is so freakin' stupid I can hardly stand it. I rarely do those kinds of meetings because frankly, I never know what to say. It's not like politicians will ever say anything juicy anyway. I'll talk to politicians when working on a journalistic endeavor (like Crashing the Gate or, early next year, my book on Libertarian Democrats). Other than that, I'd rather hang out with a staffer any day of the week. Staffers actually give you real information because they don't have to worry about "gaffes" or making a bad impression or whatever.
This is exactly right. I'm never comfortable with hierarchical relationships. I like hanging out with people who perceive me as a peer and vice versa. If, for example, I happened upon Al Gore in an airport bar and we got to shooting the shit and had a nice time that'd be great, but I have no desire to set up a formal meeting with Al Gore so he can pitch something to me.
There's really nothing they have to offer me. I'm not much of a star fucker, and whatever minor thrill of meeting politicians there was once has now mostly faded. Some politicians are pretty cool and interesting individuals who might be entertaining to shoot the shit with, but unless the conversation is at that level I'm really just not all that excited by it.