Here are my notes for the talk I'm about to give at Politics Web 2.0 on "The Revolution Will Be Networked: How Open Source Politics is Emerging in America.” (Caveat emptor, your experience may vary.)

Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee win the Iowa caucuses on a night of record turnouts, especially by youth voters; could Eventful demands be accurate predictors of primary results?; Elaine Young considers what effect social media may have had on last night's results; Ron Paul gets dissed, again, by the media; Chris Dodd and Joe Biden drop out, but Mike Gravel absolutely DID NOT; a new poll confirms that more Americans are getting their election news online; and what if the top GOP web consultants were trekkies?

Political Base, a one-size-fits-all site that seeks to connect the dots in American politics, launches; the WCA finds that only 6 out of the 17 candidates have broadband policies; Congresspedia launches Wiki the Vote, giving voters the chance to create a directory of the 2008 Congressional candidates; fun video from John Edwards' Colmbus, KY event; as Hillary Clinton's lead grow, her promised online "conversation" fades into the sunset; Mitt Romney launches the Team Mitt Action Center, but a possible bug stops me from exploring it.

John Edwards holds an event in Columbus, KY, the small town that won his Eventful "Demand and Be Heard" contest; MySpace re-launches its Impact channel and teams up with PayPal to make fundraising easy for users; Jim Geraghty asks if "YouTubeMySpaceFacebookMashup" really matters to a campaign; Tyra Banks embeds a voter registration widget and -- surprise! -- people register to vote; and Republican fundraising numbers are announced, which are significantly lower that the Democrats' numbers.

John Edwards's upcoming trip to Columbus, Kentucky signals the emergence of a whole new trend in American politics: “candidate relationship management.” Think of it as the flip side of CRM, constituent or consumer relationship management, where organizations use software tools to communicate with and keep track of their base. Instead, in a variety of ways, voters are using new Web-based platforms to act collectively to foster candidates and actions that they desire.

After months of hard work, I am happy to announce that John Edwards will be visiting Columbus, Kentucky on October 4th. In case you didn’t know, John Edwards agreed to visit the town that demanded him the most over a thirty-day period this summer on Eventful.

David Brooks thinks the netroots' influence is on the wane; an anti-Hillary Facebook group has more supporters than its pro-Obama counterpart; more details about John Edwards' visit to Columbus, KY; James Kotecki writes about his experiences as one of the first videobloggers to cover the campaign; Ron Paul is raising a fair amount of money in an end-of-quarter fundraising sprint; and Fred Thompson no longer leads in the number of visits to candidate sites.

Barack Obama is the winner of the Huffington Post/Yahoo/Slate mashup debate; John Edwards will visit Columbus, KY, the winning town in his Eventful demands competition; Off The Bus introduces Roadkill, a guide to the goofy and wacky in the campaigns; Newt Gingrich posts on Mike Huckabee's blog, world explodes; Bill Richardson releases a new video featuring Matt Stoller and Chris Bowers, with a cool new site to boot; and Mike Huckabee hosts "Vertical Day," a 24-hour Q&A with supporters.

The Web on the Candidates

The growing use of broadband Internet is helping Barack Obama raise more money from more people than ever before, writes the Washington Post's Jose Antonio Vargas. Not only did about a third of Obama's second-quarter earnings of $32.8 million come from online donations, but 90 percent of those donations were under $100, and half were $25 or less. Even MyDD's Jerome Armstrong, a Dean Internet advisor in 2003, calls it "the largest grass-roots campaign in history for this stage of a presidential race." Beyond the appeal of the candidate, part of the reason for the big numbers may come from increased broadband access. African American adults' connection rates have nearly tripled from 14 percent in 2005 to 40 percent this year, according to Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. "Folks online are doing things they've never done before," Rainie says.

The Candidates on the Web

John Edwards is currently on his "Road to One America" tour, and is using a bevy of online tools to involve supporters and help them track his activities. He's using SMS and Twitter to update supporters from the road (including opt-in audio SMS messages and geo-targeted text messages), uploading photos to Flickr, and posting videos on YouTube. The campaign has consistently used all available online tools and embraced the distributed nature of the web to get their message out, and this is no exception. However, we do wonder why they haven't built one page -- on the Edwards site or elsewhere -- that unites all of this disparate voter-generated content. A page aggregating supporters' Flickr photos, uploaded videos, and texts á la George Miller's Ask George project would be a strong indicator of Edwards' grassroots support.

The Web on the Candidates

More details have emerged about a MySpace-based reality show in development called "Independent." Developed with cooperation from Mark Burnett, whose resume includes "Survivor" and "The Apprentice," the show will capitalize on the ongoing political activity on MySpace by giving users a chance to select a "candidate" -- a regular Jill or Joe, not a current candidate -- who they think will best represent them. The winner will receive $1 million, which they can give to a candidate or a PAC or use to fund their own real run for president. Jeff Berman, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs for MySpace, sees the show trying to replicate a mythical America that ensures equality for all. "One of the most amazing things about MySpace is it's a completely neutral platform. No matter how rich you are, where you come from, or what you believe in, if you have a compelling message and you deliver it well, you have a chance to find an audience. We think it's a great thing for the political process and a great thing for America," he says.

The Candidates on the Web

Two weeks ago we wrote about a new project from California Rep. George Miller called "Ask George," which will allow voters to ask Miller questions about the Iraq war using just about every technology available; they can post videos, write blog posts, participate in Facebook groups, send a text message, use Twitter, or even write an email to Miller, being sure to tag or label the questions with "Ask George." All of the submitted questions will be aggregated at Community Counts, the site run by David Colarusso that also aggregates YouTube Spotlight videos and submissions for the upcoming YouTube/CNN debate. As we've written before, this is an innovative idea, and one of the first by a national politician to truly leverage the underlying architecture of the web. Miller's team is still putting the finishing touches on the project, but check out Miller's first video response to submitted questions; it's refreshingly honest and direct. We believe this is the first time a U.S. politician has used SMS and Twitter for pull instead of push messaging, meaning that instead of spamming supporters with messages, supporters send messages to the pol. Also, go to the Community Counts page to see what they're up to. Again, this is something the presidential candidates need to be doing. Also: check out Community Counts' Town Hall, where Colarusso et al. ask other politicians to participate in similar "Virtual Townhalls."