It's finally caucus day! MySpace crowns Barack Obama and Ron Paul the winners of its own primary; Barack Obama tops the Wu-Tang Clan on Eventful's Hottest Demands page; Chris Bowers experiences three epiphanies; Earfl lets you record a testimonial about your favorite candidate; Mike Huckabee is losing traction online, but Hillary Clinton is getting more and more blog mentions; Mitt Romney holds a tele-townhall with voters, makes it easy to robo-call; is Obama advertising on Drudge?; Mike Huckabee thanks bloggers for "doing the Lord's work"; a former SC governor messes up his Huckabee endorsement; and is a Chris Dodd thank-you video to the blogosphere his swan song?

The Republican CNN/YouTube debate is this Wednesday, and certain videos are getting "weeded out"; one writer suggests that we could be in a "banner moment for unmediated political action"; Jersey City's WFMU launches a Rudy 9/11 remix contest; pro-Hilary bloggers launch (and close) and ill-fated program to pay pro-Clinton commenters; Ron Paul beats Mike Huckabee at the "money bomb" game; another Paul haul is planned for Dec. 16; Digg lanuches a Digg the Canddiates page; Amy Schatz writes about Ron Paul supporters' aggressive tactics with the media, ensures hundreds of angry emails; the Clinton campaign gets cozy with Drudge; picking apart the candidates' email strategies; and two videos that might help you forget it's Monday.

The Web on the Candidates

The blogs are agog after New Gingrich, in an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, implied he would run for president. When asked how likely it was that he'll make a decision by the end of September, he replied, "I think right now, it is a great possibility." Although a statement on Newt's own website says that "Newt will not contemplate a candidacy until after September 29," bloggers from both sides of the aisle and gearing up for a Gingrich candidacy. Jack Ryan at the conservative Redstate thinks it's a bad idea: "At a time when the republican party should be looking for a new face that wasn't linked to the big spending congress of years past, Newt Gingrich would be a disaster as the face of the party. Nor should we have as our leader a guy with as many "personal relationship" problems leading the party. Nor should we have someone like Gingrich who still has an ethical cloud hanging over him from his days as Speaker." Meanwhile, Jonathan Singer at the liberal MyDD is "salivating over a Gingrich candidacy" given Gingrich's unpopularity.

"Though reporters, and blogs like the Drudge Report, take credit for scoops, the news of the day is more often than not produced by the invisible hand of one campaign or another," writes Salon's Michael Scherer. While most of us know about this symbiotic relationship, Scherer packs his piece with evidence and examples from the 2008 campaign that makes it clear once again that Matt Drudge -- and a host of other blogger/journalists -- is often feeding us oppo research.

What's a little traffic inflation amongst friends? When you are in the news and advertising business it's a big deal. In fact, as Conrad M. Black and the Chicago Sun-Times can tell you it can also be a very expensive deal as well.

I ran across an item over at ValleyWag.com that discussed the traffic statistics of The Drudge Report and compared them to other popular news outlets such as The Washington Post and Reuters.

It appears that Matt Drudge is artificially inflating his traffic statistics by using a small bit of HTML, specifically this piece of HTML: META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" content="175".