The Trail
Copyright 2008
Friday, July 18, 2008 6:11 PM

By Garance Franke-Ruta AUSTIN -- As liberal bloggers and the people who read them gather in Texas's capital city and settle into a groove for their third annual convention, it is somehow fitting that presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama, who appeared at the conference last year, is as far away as can be. The conference formerly known as Yearly Kos was enlivened for its first two years by the frisson of insiders and outsiders coming together. Former Virginia governor Mark Warner feted the bloggerati with chocolate fountains and plentiful booze in Las Vegas in 2006, and, the following year, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Obama and former senator John Edwards took part in a candidate forum co-moderated by a Daily Kos blogger and a reporter for The New York Times. This year, the event has been renamed Netroots Nation, and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has less need to court