No live-blogging of McCain and Obama from the LULAC conference for AMERICAblog - they refused to let us in

I planned to live-blog the speeches of John McCain and Barack Obama from the LULAC conference in DC today. Immigration is a front-burner issue for me (I volunteer to teach english to immigrants so pay particular attention to how the candidates are addressing the issue.) Also, I really wanted to see how McCain was received given his many flip-flops on this issue. I was also interested in seeing Obama as well.

The conference is literally across the street from my place -- over at the Washington Hilton. I dutifully followed the instructions to pre-register last Thursday -- and didn't hear anything back, so figured I was all set. Obviously, if anyone at LULAC had any questions about this site, they could have Googled it, or asked anyone who knows anything about blogs.

But, it's not going to happen, thanks to the LULAC media staff. They wouldn't give me the media credentials for which I pre-registered. They told me I had to have a media ID. Um, should I go to Office Depot and buy a laminating kit and fake one? Blogs don't have media IDs. Anyone who understands the Internet knows that. Apparently, the LULAC media team hasn't heard of blogs and doesn't understand new media, which is still fairly typical of many D.C.-based organizations.

Anyway, it's annoying. No matter what happens to McCain at the conference, rest assured the traditional media will coddle him, like always. Too bad we won't be able to hold them accountable because LULAC, like so many groups in Washington, is still stuck in the last century.