Senator Arlen Spector is talking up his progressive credentials in a room full of people in Joe Sestak t-shirts. You have to give him props for it. But when praised for coming to Netroots Nation, he says it ” is easy compared to yesterday” — a reference to another town hall shouting match. Denouncing the tinfoil-hattery of the health care debate, he says that Republicans have made a conscious choice to stop debating the merits of legislation.

His 2010 primary opponent Joe Sestak, a 30-year military veteran, is also here. “Every military officer is a Democrat,” he says, pointing out the military’s free health care system. Recounting his daughter’s brain tumor, he declares Tricare the best insurance system in the world and spends much of the next 30 minutes talking mostly about health care reform.

Netroots Nation offers panels on every progressive issue: environmentalism, human rights, media technology, and more. But health care reform is the 500-lb gorilla in this building. Single-payer advocates have signs and flyers; everyone is talking about the public option and the Teabag Terror. Agreement is universal: this is the most important battle we have ever fought.

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The diversity here is amazing. I’ve met every type and description of person at Netroots Nation. Gray-haired grannies exchange Twitter handles with teenage muckrakers. Minority bloggers sit on panels with white, old-school reporters. Atheists find common cause with collared clergy. The progressive cause is what we’re here for; the fake lines of division disappear.

This is also the place to meet pros you admire. I’ve shaken hands with some of my favorite bloggers: Nico Pitney, David Neiwart, Digby… I’ve met Don Siegelman, the former governor of my state and martyr to the political prosecutions of Karl Rove. I’ve met Markos Moulitsas, founder of the progressive website Daily Kos. Everyone who is anyone in the progressive message is right here.

How far am I from Alabama? Cars pull up to the Westin Hotel with bumper stickers I never see back home; indeed, that place feels less like home to me than some distant, red-state hell. This week I am among my people, feeling right at home.

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Some way down the street, I’m told, there’s a shadow conference of wingnut bloggers and activists. This is apparently a Michelle Malkin production of some kind, an annual event that’s supposed to do…what, exactly? Pressure us? Make us feel unsafe?

It perfectly fits the right-wing pattern of stalking the outspoken and obsessing over progressive personalities. What a remarkably reactive project: why follow the liberals around? Why not just hold their own convention on their own time in a city of their own choosing?

Why do they feel the need to be close to us? Are they…obsessed?!

Suggestion to Netroots Nation organizers: next year, hold this affair in San Francisco so the wingnuts can surround themselves with dirty hippie libtard moonbats. That should make them happy.

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I found myself out of my depth yesterday: a pair of Pennsylvania activists/bloggers with incredible command of current poll data on Alabama. It strikes me that I am once again surrounded by another class of geek, and I use that word with love.

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Finally: news tonight that Senator Specter called out Chuck Grassley…on Twitter. The microblogging service has taken over the world, it seems, and in the most post-postmodern of ways. I’ve heard sad admissions of this in the same breath as proud hurrahs. One entire panel was devoted to the subject of maximizing Twitter. Not a week ago, I opened a Twitter account with an unenthusiastic sigh; I have seen the future, and it is all thumbs.