The Web on the Candidates

• Telecom lobbyists are once again pushing for an update to FISA that would give telecoms retroactive immunity for participating in an illegal government wiretapping program. In response, progressive bloggers are urging Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to take a break from the campaign trail to oppose the bill. “Get thee to DC and filibuster, Senators,” Jane Hamsher writes. (Chris Dodd is already threatening to do so).

• In order to push the case more, Credo Action (who currently advertises on techPresident) urged members to send emails to Obama, Clinton, and John McCain asking them to return to Washington for the vote. On the Credo blog, Matt Browner Hamlin, a former staffer for Chris Dodd, claimed the action — which brought in almost 70,000 emails to Obama’s campaign alone — was too much for Obama’s email servers take, and they went down. We could be wrong, but it seems like 70,000 emails isn’t enough to shut down such large email servers… we’re looking into it.

• Data spelunker Matthew Hurst performed another search on behalf of the nation yesterday, charting the Republican candidates versus the Democrats on Nielsen’s BlogPulse to discover which party has more buzz. The ensuing chart shows that until November both candidates were getting about the same amount of online attention but now the Dems — with all the in-fighting and mudslinging (we need a new phrase for that!) — are, for now, Kings of the Buzz.

• The Fred Thompson post-mortems are still rolling in. The latest come from techPresident contributor Patrick Ruffini, who’s asking Republican strategists for their take (lazy or not lazy?) as well as offering up his own (“Ultimately, the story of the Fred Thompson campaign will be one of authenticity and grassroots potential wasted on a cookie-cutter Washington campaign”). Over at Beltway Blogroll Danny Glover notes that as Thompson’s promise to run an internet-fueled campaign fizzled, so did his candidacy. Before he officially announced his run, Thompson courted the blogosphere and made good use of the web himself. “But the reality is that Thompson’s approach to the race changed after he became an official candidate,” Glover says.

• It’s not about the race, but it’s cool anyway: Former Journalist and whiz developer Adrian Holovaty has launched EveryBlock, a great new site (for us city dwellers, anyway) that aggregates civic information, news articles, and other web data relating to your neighborhood (it’s still pretty new, so only three cities are covered so far: Chicago, New York, and San Francisco). It’s kind of like ChicagoCrime — another Holovaty project — on steroids. You can type in your zip code and discover info about crimes, restaurant inspections, community news, and more. It’s kind of like outside.in, but for information beyond the the blogosphere. I didn’t notice any feeds on the site though — hopefully those will come soon. So what’s happening in my neighborhood? Graffiti!?! I’m shocked, shocked, shocked.

The Candidates on the Web

• A post on DailyKos from Peter Daou, Hillary Clinton’s Internet Director, has seemingly backfired. Daou, repeating the Clinton campaign’s charge that Barack Obama was praising Ronald Reagan when he said the GOP was the “party of ideas,” argued that “without a clear qualifier that the GOP’s ideas were bad, Sen. Obama’s comment… comes across as complimentary of the GOP.” The post has generated 395 comments thus far, mostly attacking the Clinton campaign with statements like “[Clinton] is starting to invoke Ronald Reagan more than the Republicans. Can we give the horse the last rites already?” Daou may have only been the messenger, but it’s still harsh treatment.

• Laptop Magazine’s Dana Wollman has written up descriptions of the candidates’ stances on several web-related issues, including Net neutrality, intellectual property, privacy, and internet taxes (we did this too, for both the Democrats and the Republicans). Wollman does an admirable job of communicating the importance of these issues to those outside the tech community: “To understand where the candidates stand on technology is to understand many of the fundamental principles driving their campaigns,” Wollman writes. Okay, so how many candidates have an iPhone? Karl Rove does!

• Science site Physics Today is jumping into politics with its coverage of the candidates’ positions on core science issues from science education to teaching evolution to climate change. You may not be too surprised at many of the answers (though Mike Huckabee doesn’t think creationism should be the only thing taught in schools), but it’s a helpful resource for voters with science on the brain.

In Case You Missed It…

It’s not too late for the campaigns to take some bold steps, using the web, to get new infusions of money, volunteers and votes. Micah Sifry and Andrew Rasiej tell us how it can be done.

On Day One, a new site that launched yesterday, is inviting folks from around the world to post their ideas. It’s kind of like Facebook for people who want to right America’s standing in the world. But will it be big enough to effect a change?

Presidential campaigns may not be spending tons on Web ads, but they’ve recently shown a greater willingness to experiment with innovative ad creative and messaging, writes Kate Kaye.

Barack Obama | DailyKos | Dennis Kucinich | EveryBlock | FISA | Hillary Clinton
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