New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley writes that "Debates give candidates a chance to break loose of YouTube-ification and speak for themselves at length." She couldn't be more wrong about YouTube.

A new site does a great job of illustrating the candidates' health care positions; progressive liveblogging during the Michigan primary; the Caucus Calculator is updated for Nevada; why aren't the Republicans using the web to get out the vote in Michigan?; John Edwards once again teams up with Eventful; Dennis Kucinich successfully sues MSNBC, will attend the Nevada debate; and a new report says that most Congressional website are plain awful.

More on the CNN/YouTube debate: Save the Debate wants CNN out of the YouTube debate process; Factcheck.org finds a smattering of truth-bending among the candidates; IPDI gets their criticism on; regardless of criticism, the debate was the the most-watched of the season; gay advocates are compiling a list of Giuliani's pro-gay efforts; our own Micah Sifry and David Colarusso get interviewed; and Hillary answers questions on iVillage, doesn't break a sweat.

The Republicans finally had their YouTube debate, but it wasn't as participatory as the producers would like to think, since the public couldn't help decide which videos to show; in fact, only two of the forty most-viewed submissions were shown; conservatives and liberals alike are bothered that the questions were so narrow, focusing overwhelmingly on guns, immigration, and religion; and then there's the gay general, whose link to Hillary Clinton shook things up; the overwhelming opinion is that Mike Huckabee walked away with a victory; some of the candidates' teams liveblogged the event; and for something completely different, check out the New York Times' profile of ActBlue.

Getting ready for tonight's CNN/YouTube debate; it's good to see all of the Republicans participating, and the introduction of user-submitted videos is a welcome change, but we're still wishing it involved the public in the question selection process; debate executive producer David Borhman continues to be skeptical of allowing the pubic to choose the questions; UStream is becoming a significant player in online political video; James Kotecki takes a bath, guest curates YouTube's front page; the DNC announces a new video library of Republican campaign appearances; John Edwards launches a new anti-lobbyist project; and Hillary and Barack both teach their supporters how to caucus.

The CNN/YouTube debate nears, and Billiam the snowman rears his frosty head; but espite about 5,000 submissions, many are focusing on a handful of questions from snowmen, unicorns, and dragons; executive producer David Bohrman is "the most direct way for people everywhere... to participate in the debates; a new Ron Paul fundraising push is set for this Friday; electiononline.org reminds us that the election season is a dreary nine months long; and an argument from the Chris Dodd campaign for his video's inclusion in tomorrow's debate.

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.

Off The Bus and Scoop08, two citizen-journalism efforts tracking the election, get the New York Times treatment; a Republican CNN/YouTube debate is confirmed (I thought that already happened?); what is the meaning of Stephen Colbert's continued popularity on Facebook?; Why Tuesday posts some responses to its Candidate Challenge; and Barack Obama participates in the MTV/MySpace online dialogue, and does well (at least that's what this video-disabled blogger heard).

A interactive feature from the New York Times makes it easy to skip around through a text transcript and video of last night's Republican debate; Patrick Ruffini wants the crowd to help him index political blog influence; who won this weekend's Value Voters straw poll?; and Barack Obama reaches his fundraising goal of $2 million.

Chris Bowers on the progress of his Googlebombing campaign against Rudy Giuliani; Mashable has details on the tech used in the upcoming MySpace/MTV presidential "dialogues," and Matt Lewis anticipates some left-right balance due to the participation of both MySpace ("right") and MTV ("left"); MTV's politically-oriented social networking site is set to launch later today; and Barack Obama launches a donation-matching drive with a twist.