The Web on the Candidates

• Bailout FAIL: Micah Sifry checks back in on the wave of protest that has greeted Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's $700 billion bailout plan. From the appearance of the "fail" meme at the big committee hearing on Capitol Hill to the mobilization of progressive groups like SEIU and True Majority to public's appetite for online news of the economic distress, the web is mobilizing around the government's response to the mess on Wall Street. Says Micah: "If what’s rumbling online is any indication, there’s a lot of fury building in America at the size and speed of this bailout proposal, and Congress should pay attention, at its peril." #

• Cell-Only Young Voters Lean Obama: You don't have to follow polls that closely to know of the fears that cell phones threaten to kick the leg out of modern surveying. A new Pew Research Center study finds that while among all voters, modeling off of land lines to capture the leanings of the mobile-only crowd is a satisfactory approximate. But, there's a "but" -- when it comes to those under 30, the gap between land and air widens considerable. Pew found that while 39% of sub-30 registered voters reached by land line are backing McCain, just 27% of cell-only voters lean his way. On the other side of the aisle, the trend goes the other way: just over half of land line voters under 30 are Obama fans, but that number jumps to 62% when the sample is limited to those who only use a mobile phone. If young people turn out in force on election day, those nuances might be multiplied enough to have serious impact on who becomes the next President. But our polls might be none the wiser. (Thanks Shaun Dakin) #

• Does MyBO Disappoint Super Volunteers?: Does MyBarackObama.com break down at the point where volunteers might otherwise turn into self-organizing surrogates? MyDD's Shai Sachs has thinks it just might. What might serve Team Obama well, writes Shai, is to tap into 37Signals-type communication tools. The benefits: not only a more empowered supporter base, but lessons on bottom-up mobilization that might last past election day. But a commenter from California writes to say that his/her state's Obama organization is doing just that. Only they're doing outside of MyBO, and making use of Google Docs. #

The Candidates on the Web

• Meghan McCain -- A Perfectly Modern Young American: Future Majority's Michael Connery points us to Noreen Malone's illuminating Slate profile of John McCain's blogging daughter. A taste: "If some of the snippets [from McCain Blogette, Meghan's campaign blog] seem to signal ditz, the big picture is a smartly composed one. Meghan is an Ivy League grad who interned at Newsweek and Saturday Night Live, and she has constructed an image that jibes precisely with one expectation of 23-year-old women." Meghan is a creature of the Facebook generation that lives life online in that liminal state between public and private. And she's proven herself adept at navigating that space. (And helping the Republican ticket navigate it. Witness this Blogette photo of Sarah Palin, backstage, juggling baby and Blackberry.) Writes Noreen: "Young, pretty, and tech-savvy, she's a tremendous asset, because she's got a better feel for the way the campaign news cycle works in this era than lots of highly paid strategists." Meghan's constructed meta-existance mirrors the lives of many in an age bracket her dad would love to attract. #

TechCongress and Beyond

• A Request for Urgent Business Relationship: "Dear American: I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude." You've guessed where this is going, right? A rather funny email making the rounds yesterday mimicked those absurd Nigerian 419 scam emails that, I'm guessing, fill up your spam folder. This one, of course, had a twist: "My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US," signed, "Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson." Humor, wielded well, can be a powerful political tool, especially when it's used to distill a complex policy topic. If, that is, you can wipe the tears from your eyes long enough to read it through. No word yet on who sent it. #

In Case You Missed It...

Nancy Scola asks if a wiki used by the Australian city of Melbourne to craft a vision statement is a chance to redistribute political power or yet one more way for citizens to vent.

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