The Web on the Candidates

• National Public Radio held a radio-only Democratic debate yesterday, and by most accounts the forum was, in true NPR fashion, a well-run but low-key affair (maybe they needed Alec Baldwin to come in with his Schweaty Balls to liven things up!). Meanwhile, NPR writers liveblogged the event at the NPR News Blog — is this the first time a media organization has liveblogged its own debate?

• French observer of American politics Marjorie Paillon is keeping a keen eye on the presidential race, and has been using the web homepage site NetVibes to aggregate all of the information she can find about it. It just might become a resource for us here at techPrez once our overstuffed Google Reader accounts suffer their inevitable nuclear meltdown.

• Writer Jon Garfunkel echoes the lament of many when he writes the candidates simply aren’t taking advantage of the blogging form. “The best political speakers – such as Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Bill Clinton… are must-hear. So why aren’t any current candidates must-read? And why do the campaign blogs help not at all here?” It’s true; just a brief note a day, or a response to treatment in the media, could go a long way.

• The intrepid public-interest vlogger Jacob Soboroff, of the Why Tuesday election reform campaign, is still trying to get three candidates — Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, and Mitt Romney — to respond to the Why Tuesday Candidate Challenge. He tried to catch up with the candidates at last week’s Republican CNN/YouTube debate, but the best he got was a video interview with his macaca-ness, former Virginia Sen. George Allen, who’s now working with the Thompson campaign. The WT folks want candidates to agree that the day on which we hold elections is a problem. But Allen wouldn’t specify what sort changes Thompson would support. I’m a bit baffled here: do these last three candidates really think our election system is not in need of any reform, and that’s it ok to repeatedly rebuff WT’s efforts?

• A blogger at the Institute for Politics, Democracy & The Internet (IPDI) blog (why can't they label who's writing what?) has a great post about Ron Paul supporters online and off. Reacting to some websites that have restricted Paul supporters from posting comments, the bloggers says, "The web is infinite, so on with it. Do your thing. You can’t get mad like RedState.com and suddenly ban Paul net-supporters altogether from your site; that only fuels the libertarian rage." But the blogger also points out what many of us have been thinking: "But, seriously, these cats are really going to have to turn it down a level if they want their candidate to transition from choir-preaching to mass appeal."

The Candidates on the Web

• Google News has been slowly rolling out a new feature that lets the writers and subjects of articles comment on their pieces. Chris Dodd’s campaign is apparently the first and only presidential campaign to take advantage of the feature. Press Secretary Colleen Flanagan posted a response to an Associated Press article about the return of Don Imus, reassuring the public that Dodd and his wife have worked with Imus on issues they both “share a deep commitment to, such as autism, and saw today’s appearance as an opportunity to continue to talk about this and other important issues with Mr. Imus’ audience.” Thanks for clearing that up!
• The organizers of the Democratic National Convention have already announced that there'll be a place for bloggers at this summer's convention. Now the Republican National Convention organizers are also opening their arms to the blogonistas. "We are going to welcome the blogging community. We need the bloggers and the independent media on board," RNC chairman Mike Duncan told Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Monitor. (Via Off The Bus)
• Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama have all released videos explaining to their supporters how to navigate the labyrinthine Iowa caucus process. But whose video is actually being watched. According to the YouTube stats (chart to come soon), Hillary's funny "Caucusing is Easy" video, which features Bill and a hamburger among other things, is the most popular, garnering more than 3,000 views on YouTube compared to almost 2,000 views for Obama's video and about 1,800 views for Edwards' video, which was posted yesterday. The Clinton video received a spike yesterday; we're looking into where it came from.

In Case You Missed It…

We recently talked with Change.org founder Ben Rattray
— whose site seeks to combine social networking with social change — about new changes to the site that give nonprofits the chance to create their own social networks. Head on over to Personal Democracy Forum for the full story on whether this changes the game for online nonprofits and the challenges facing the site.

Chris Dodd | Fred Thompson | George Allen | NPR
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