Those of us on the West Coast - or who stayed up extra late - were able to catch President Obama's town hall live on TV from China along with the accompanying Twitter chatter. There were some amazing nuggets from the town hall. It provided a genuine dialogue with the president, who opened up on his thoughts on everything from terrorism to the open Internet, but much of that will be lost in the Twitter streams the next day or so because Barack Obama admitted (*gasp*) that he has never used Twitter.

Among Barack Obama's more memorable pledges upon entering the White House was to create "an unprecedented level of openness in Government." This past week, two reports graded the Administration's commitment to this pledge thus far. The grades are mediocre.

OpenTheGovernment.org's 40+ page report (PDF) touches on digital issues, such as declassification of emails and the Open Government Directive project, but mainly sticks to issues like FOIA, FISA, executive privilege, and whistleblower protection.

On Wednesday, the Electronic Privacy Information Center published a smaller yet more digitally-focused report (PDF). The grades range from a C+ on civil liberty matters like the PATRIOT Act and REAL ID, to an A- for medical privacy.

Sam Graham-Felsen is currently serving as content director and director of outreach for Blue State Digital. Sam was the Director of blogging and blog outreach for Obama for America, where he also helped to produce online videos for the campaign. Prior to the Obama campaign, Sam covered youth politics for The Nation and was a video producer for Current TV. He graduated cum laude from Harvard in 2004.

Hear Sam's experience of how he went from being one of the first bloggers on the Obama Campaign to managing a whole team. Sam shares the secrets of his blogging success and talks about his current work at Blue State Digital.

PdF Chat Time, new feature here at Personal Democracy Forum, gives you a behind the scenes glimpse into the lives of the politechnorati. Hear what inspires them, what keeps them up at night, and who throws the wildest parties. Get informed by the most knowledgeable players in the world of politics and technology.

This interview was conducted by phone on June 22th at 3:00pm and has been edited for clarity.

Know someone who I should interview? Email your suggestion to me at anna@personaldemocracy.com.

No, not really. Instead, we look at the seemingly instantaneous response yesterday to the hubbub over where John McCain hangs his hat(s); C-SPAN does a convention-inspired upgrade, pulling in an impressive amount of third-party creative content; we challenge you to record your electoral vote predictions; and a tremendous amount more.

The Sunlight Foundation takes *all* the fun out of the upcoming political conventions by highlighting who's paying for the crudites; a new profile of the X-Men-like Obama online team sparks a bit of professional jealousy in competitors; the Democratic candidate's economic advisor roots his thinking in the networked world; and a good deal more.

Video war continues between Obama and McCain, McCain is using Wikipedia, David All is impressed with McCain's online ads, Jame Hamsher has a new PAC to boast about, #dontgo campaign gets a little more support,

Obama texts his supporters his choice of VP, is Obama the first "cybergenic" candidate?, What will McCain do for VP?, Obama hits back at two McCain ads, the blogs respond to Edwards' extramarital affair, Bush enjoys women's beach volleyball, and Barack gets "Rick Rolled"

Citizen-journalists chosen by Decision '08, contest for "Why are you a Democrat/Republican," what do pollworkers of the 21st Century look like?, fears of security threats at the Democratic National Convention, Twitter scandal erupts over fake "speakerpelosi" account, and coded messages directed at Evangelicals in John McCain's "The One" ad.

Several new projects point to the idea that politicos are coming to understand how much social networks matter in 2008; the world's most famous customer service representative jumps into the wired POTUS debate; the DNC wants to preemptively paint the Republican vice presidential candidate as the next Dick Cheney; the #dontgo uprising enters a second week, and we consider whether this hashtag is becoming a full-fledged movement; and so much more it would take require calling Congress back into session to discuss it all properly.

Some netrooters have launched a campaign to push retired General Wes Clark for the Dem VP spot; Capitol Hill is all abuzz with an on-going Republican protest that's being live-Twittered/Qikked/blogged; the hashing over of John McCain's tech-savvy continues; Germans are checking out McCain's "Celeb" ad, but they might not be enjoying it; and so much more that it would take a dozen tweets and three Qik accounts to contain it all.