Off the Bus' Kristin Gorski asks if all this digital detritus is hurting or helping the election; Tom Tancredo bows out, but leaves behind his legacy on immigration; Curt Schilling is a verbose blogger, but maybe we need more of those!; and Jake Tapper uncovers two anti-Obama URLs connected to the Clinton campaign.

We studied the candidates' websites and statements, hunting for signs that they understand the importance of the internet and new technology for America's future. The Republican field, with the exceptions of Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul, barely escaped flunking.

TechCrunch interviews the candidates, geeks rejoice; Barack Obama stops by Google and YouTube tomorrow, answers your questions; earmarking is the new black among some in Congress; and Tom Tancredo unveils a new incendiary ad.

The Web on the Candidates

Someone on the Hillary Clinton campaign is obviously leaking stories to Drudge, says Patrick Ruffini. His proof? A Drudge exclusive claiming that Clinton is on track to exceed her first-quarter earnings. Drudge makes it clear as day that this story is a World Exclusive, which does raise the question of who's passing on this information...

Meanwhile, Election Geek is finding major discrepancies between the Drudge story and a Huffington Post story claiming that Clinton has maxed out her big donors and is struggling to keep up with small donations. "So which one is it?" Geek asks. His opinion: "Clinton had a massive donor database she didn’t even come close to tapping. The prevailing wisdom 'out there' was that everyone jumped ship to Obama. My own thought? She purposely didn’t tap that list knowing they were going to do well in Q1 and saved more big donations for Q2."

The Web on the Candidates -- Daily Digest Lite
Citizen Kate is on a mission "to find out what it takes to be the next great leader in this country."  She's been videotaping herself following around Barack Obama, finally got a chance to touch him!  "They say dreams can come true here, and so they did. Citizen Kate touched Barack Obama! I mean I think [he] did." (via PrezVid)

CitizenTube (also known as Steve Grove) has posted a "Welcome to citizentube" video that that asks viewers to upload video responses to the question, "What issue matters most to YOU?"   For James Kotecki it's "getting people to care about political issues in the first place."  Stuart Moffat wants everyone to turn off the lights for at least five minutes a day.  Some of the other responses seem only loosely related to the question.

The Web on the Candidates

The Editors Weblog reports that The New York Times and the New York Sun are both developing dedicated web sites to cover the 2008 election. "The migration of politics and political journalism to the web isn't quite new, but it sure is moving fast. We're moving too," NYT executive editor Bill Keller says.

Valleywag took a tour through John Edwards' unofficial space in Second Life and wound up asking, "where are all the people, anyway?" Well, there two people there, and the writer was able to hop on to a helicopter and hover next them, prompting one person to say, "Dude, there's a helicopter behind you."