The Web on the Candidates

• The Genocide Intervention Network, an anti-genocide group that raises money to fight the genocide in Darfur, has launched a new campaign, called Ask the Candidates, calling for the presidential candidates to make a series of commitments to end the genocide, and to especially divest any personal investments tied to Sudan. According to the press release, Sam Brownback, Rudy Giuliani, John Edwards, and Barack Obama have committed to divesting their Sudan holdings (it was a surprise to learn that they had holdings there in the first place!) and the group is putting pressure on the other candidates to do the same. The goal is to keep the pressure on the candidates to both follow through with these commitments and then, when elected, make a decisive move to end the genocide in Darfur. It's a good way to tie the election to larger, more international issues; let's see how the public responds.
• As we've been reporting, Ron Paul is continuing to get buzz around the Internet, largely because of his showdown with Rudy Giuliani during last week's Republican presidential debate. Need more proof? As of this writing, a post from Katherine Seelye over at the Caucus about Ron Paul's online support generated 65 comments in support of Ron Paul from Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians, who all find his honesty, directness, and what they see as his strict adherence to the Constitution refreshing. There is definitely something happening online for Ron Paul...
• Jeff Jarvis thinks the American left has won the Internet, for now. While he calls the online efforts of the Democrats and Republicans "so far pathetic... a race of tortoise v tortoise," he agrees with Jose Antonio Vargas, who wrote in yesterday's Washington Post that the Democrats are ahead of the Republicans. Meanwhile, the Europeans are ahead of everyone, Jarvis says.

The Candidates on the Web

• Ron Paul has redesigned his website again. He now has a "blog," which is actually just a Typepad account with one-sentence headlines as blog posts, video on the front page of his heated debate with Rudy Giuliani, and -- finally -- links to all of the socnets that are his major sources of support. Paul is getting more and more popular on YouTube and, especially, on Eventful, where demands for his appearance have risen to over 4400, thousands more than Rudy Giuliani, the next most-demanded Republican with 160 demands as of this morning. Paul's site still needs some serious design work, and doesn't include any social-networking apps of its own, but he's benefitting plenty from the work of his supporters, at least online.

In Case You Missed It...

Colin Delany writes up his impression of Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry's session at Saturday's PdF unconference about the limits of user-generated content in the French election.

Darfur | Ron Paul
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