Potential problems with journalists using Facebook; Ron Paul is excluded from an online straw poll; Mitt Romney invites supporters to create a campaign TV ad with a new online mashup tool; former Yahoo director of election strategy Cyrus Krohn on his new job as the RNC's eCampaign director; Chris Dodd updates his website to reflect his firefighter endorsement; and Elizabeth Edwards gets criticized by a mommy in the blogosphere.

The Web on the Candidates

It's good to be back! The, er, south Pacific (or was that the north Atlantic?) was splendid.

The Ames Straw Poll results are in, and Mitt Romney has won handily, with 31% of the vote.  The big story, though, is Mike Huckabee's surprising second-place finish, which came despite a relative lack of money and resources. Meanwhile, Sam Brownback finished a disappointing third, just a couple of points ahead of Tom "Let's bomb their holy sites" Tancredo, and six points ahead of Ron Paul, who finished fifth, proving that his fanatical online support has yet to move offline.

The Web on the Candidates

Which candidate has the strongest stance on universal health care? Is it 53-year-old John Edwards? Or 59-year-old Hillary Clinton? How about 10-year-old Susie Flynn? Flynn is running for president on one platform, getting health insurance for the nine million uninsured children in America. While this might seem like a cutesy ploy, Susie (and her handlers) are actually quite serious -- in one video she argues that, for the amount we spend every three and half months in Iraq, every child in the U.S. could be insured. She even takes her campaign to Capitol Hill. When will another candidate adopt her platform?

The Web on the Candidates

Yesterday, we linked to a post from Giuliani advisor Patrick Ruffini in which he disagreed with people who think the Democrats own the Internet.  TechPresident's Mike Turk engages Ruffini in a long response to the post, questioning assumptions about media attention paid to Democrats and Republicans, word of mouth marketing, campaign organization, and more.  It's a detailed and thoughtful discussion -- check it out. 

MyDD has a new straw poll out, and not only is John Edwards in first place, almost 10 points ahead of Barack Obama, but Hillary Clinton is fifth place, almost 40 points behind Edwards and over point behind "Other."  Given that MyDD's readers are overwhelmingly liberal and critical of Clinton, the results aren't that surprising, but will this extreme unpopularity with the base affect her standing with the general public?