The Personal Democracy Forum conference here in New York City on Monday was, like most conferences, an onslaught of information, people old and people new. I find such things a bit overwhelming, but I still enjoyed it. I moderated a panel on the rising power of local political blogs with Juan Melli of Blue Jersey, Gur Tsabar of Room 8, Aldon Hynes of the Lamont campaign, Scott Sala of Urban Elephants, and Liza Sabater of Daily Gotham. I think it went fairly well -- and served to spark some interest in localized political blogging (I called it political blogging 2.0 -- clever no?) -- though who am I to judge how pretty my prom dress was? (I've had a lot of coffee this morning. Please bear with me.)

In the spirit of wrap-up, I offer some quick thoughts and notes on the day's two keynote speakers -- New York gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer and Elizabeth Edwards, wife of John Edwards.

First, Spitzer. On first impression, he's rather harsh in person, all angles. It's his face, but also his demeanor. (You can take the guy out of the prosecutor's office...) He ran through his prepared remarks like they were on fire. It was a lecture, really, but at least it was on the fascinating-to-me topic of technology policy.

Some of the main points: he wants to expand rural and urban broadband access, build a communications networks for first responders, tear down barriers to municipal wireless, expand the Universal Service Fund (the extra fee on our phone bills to make sure every house, school, and hospital in America can get a phone dial tone) to cover broadband, direct the New York State's Office of Technology should map out all its broadband infrastructure assets, and start figuring out how it can leverage telephone poles and mailboxes (though those are federal, Spitzer admitted) to extend high-speed access.

He hit all the right points, but he left me a bit cold at the end with the roteness with which he hit 'em. His closing line -- "The problem is not a lack of resources, the problem is a lack of imagination and a lack of leadership" -- helped, but not all that much.

But then he sat down for a conversation with Mark Halperin, of ABC's the Note. Perhaps it was simply in contrast to Halperin's, for lack of a better way to put it, utter jerkiness, but the Spitz was much better in this part of the session. (Since I ended up liking him, he is now known to me as "the Spitz.") Halperin (no nickname for you!) began by stipulating to all the political bloggers in the room, "you're all smarter than me," let's just get that out of the way.

Mr. Mark Halperin later tried to trip up the Spitz with some fancy journalistic jujitsu, asking him how much it costs to download a song from iTunes. "Uh, I think $.99," said Spitz. The crowd cheered for several seconds. Other examples of Halperin's wit and wisdom:

"What worked for Dean (in terms of his use of tech)? I don't recall him winning the Democratic nomination."

"Now, what we're talking about is kids going online to read Chaucer and listen to Beethoven..." (Spitzer's response? "Mine do. Yours don't?")

Sigh. Halperin is such a hater, he made that perfectly clear.

In response to an audience question, Spitzer said that, of course, we should move very quickly to a time where we all vote via the Internet. But until we get the bugs worked out, we should be figuring out how to vote by mail, like they do in Oregon. Spitzer doesn't see much of a difference between bloggers and journalists -- it's a difference of medium, is all. He mentioned Wikipedia as a sort of model for a think tank that NY could use to solve the state's problems.

After the conversation with Halperin, I decided that while the Spitz may not be the cuddliest guy in the room, he's incredibly smart in a clever sort of way (which is not a bad way to be smart in politics, though a spot of wisdom would be nice too.) A thoroughly competent progressive Democrat, which goes a long way towards winning my vote. You could hand him New York State, go on a long vacation, and assume that it'd still be standing when you got back.

On to Elizabeth Edwards. She's geeky, in a lovely sort of way. She's built a number of websites herself, in particular this one for a computer learning center in NC dedicated to her son, Wade. Moderator Andrew Rasiej asked her what's on her blog reading list. "If I can only go to one," she said, "I go to Talking Points (Memo)." Mostly, though, she focuses on North Carolina political blogs, like Orange Politics. While she's in front of a computer from about 8 in the morning until 11 at night, her husband's a bit less tech-savvy. She told a story about how his first-ever email to her was in all lower case, and the last line of the message was:

"how do you make a capital letter?"

Other highlights:

She told Bob Fertik that nope, she's not in favor of pursuing the impeachment of Bush. "I'd like to see him not be President. Obviously, I worked very hard for that not to be the case," but by going for impeachment, "we will have wasted a lot of time," created new enemies, and deepened old hatreds. Next.

Edwards was asked if she worries that by being open and honest online, she might turn off potential voters. She responded, "If people don't like you and don't want to vote for you, maybe they shouldn't."

Yeah, she's pretty appealing in person. Honest-seeming and quite personable. An audience member started a question to her by saying "hello, Mrs. Edwards," and she responded, "haaay" in a carolina drawl that could really just charm your pants off. If I'm being honest, I have to admit that she's clearly a tremendous asset to any campaign that John Edwards might decide to pursue.

And that was my PDF.