Democratic presidential candidates confirm participation at YearlyKos this summer

This is incredibly exciting news:

YearlyKos Convention organizers announced today that Sen. John Edwards, Sen. Barack Obama, and Gov. Bill Richardson confirmed their participation in a Presidential Leadership Forum to be held August 4 in Chicago. Confirmations from other candidates are forthcoming.

Organizers say the event—the first ever collaborative presidential forum with both a respected blogger and a leading member of the traditional media as moderators—is an opportunity to use technology to empower citizens to engage and evaluate America’s potential leaders, both face-to-face and online. Many political candidates, including Edwards and Obama, already frequently use sites like Daily Kos to dialogue with the public.

Matt Bai, writer for The New York Times Magazine and author of a book on Democratic politics to be released in August, and Joan McCarter, contributing editor at Daily Kos, will moderate. Author and blogger Dr. Jeffrey Feldman will facilitate questions from convention attendees and those submitted in advance from tens of thousands of blog readers.

“This year we are honored to add the YearlyKos Presidential Leadership Forum to th slate of events scheduled at the YearlyKos Convention,” said YearlyKos Convention Executive Director Gina Cooper. "The forum is an opportunity to have a discussion about the issues that matter and hear detailed responses to the questions America needs answered.”

Organizers are asking candidates to spend time in intimate, unscripted citizen dialogue with attendees, encouraging substantive discussions that transcend the competitive nature of most joint appearances on the campaign trail.

NPI will be represented at YearlyKos by at least two staff members (including myself!) and we'll host live coverage of the convention the first week in August as we did last year - though this year we'll probably have more multimedia to go along with the typed word.