The Web on the Candidates

• As the Republican CNN/YouTube debate nears, Billiam the snowman again rears his frosty head, asking a question of snowman-hater Mitt Romney about flip-flopping. Who knows if CNN’s producers will include the questions — they wouldn’t want to offend the Republicans with any Democratic “gotcha” questions — but they’ll have 5,000 others to choose from.

• Many of the submitted questions are serious, however, (though maybe not “Republican” enough), and don’t involve snowmen or other animated creatures — not that there’s anything wrong with that! The Washington Post’s Jose Antonio Vargas looks at a few, noting questions about immigration, stem-cell research, gay rights, and Mormonism (his editors, however, chose to illustrate his post only with images of Mr. Potato Head, a unicorn, Billiam, and a stuffed dragon). He also talks to the omnipresent David Bohrman, the executive producer of the event, who is typically confident about the role of the TV show debate. It’s “the most direct way for people everywhere — real people — to participate in the debates,” Bohrman — who has yet to respond to criticism about CNN being the sole selector of the questions — told Vargas.

• Trebor Lyman, the man behind Ron Paul’s $4.3 million haul earlier this month, is planning another big fundraising push for this Friday. “The plan,” writes the Politico’s Kenneth Vogel, “is to get Paul’s campaign past its $12 million fourth-quarter goal a full month before the quarter ends.” Lyman created a site called Rudy’s Reading List to call attention to Paul’s critique of American foreign policy and his opposition to Rudy Giuliani’s interventionism. The other purpose of the site is, of course, to raise money. At the top of the page — above links to books about America’s foreign policy and 9/11 and related videos — is an ask for your pledge to donate $100 on November 30th. There have been 1,878 pledges (almost $190,000 for the calculator-less) as of this morning, but we suspect that number will rise quickly.

• Electiononline.org, a project of the Pew Center on the States, has built a simple but cool calendar showing the dates of all of the state caucuses, primaries, and runoffs. Our election reformer friends at Why Tuesday point out that the calendar is a full nine months long, as the primary season officially ends on Sept. 20 in Hawaii. Thanks to Electiononline for reminding us (as if we needed it!) of how painfully long the electoral season is.

The Candidates on the Web

• As we noted yesterday, Chris Dodd posted his own video question, about protecting the Constitution, to the Republican candidates for tomorrow’s debate. But the New York Times’ Ariel Alexovich has suggested that, based on David Bohrman’s comments that CNN will refrain from asking Democratic “gotchas,” the question won’t be asked. Dodd blogger Matt Browner-Hamlin argues that the question is decidedly non-partisan. “Dodd goes so far as to pose a follow-up question based on the premise that some of the Republican candidates will agree with him that ‘we ought not give up our rights,’” Hamlin writes. The argument should be taken with a grain of salt; Dodd is a presidential candidate who prominently displayed a campaign sign in his video, so he obviously is looking for some free air time. But Browner-Hamlin makes a good point; why shouldn’t we show the video if it addresses an issue pertinent to both parties?

In Case You Missed It…

With less than two months to go before the first primaries, Zephyr Teachout argues that the campaign webmasters’ jobs have changed. Instead of galvanizing supporters, they must now communicate information to non-supporters.

Michael Whitney takes a look at the mechanics of each campaign’s email program and grades their performance based on accepted standards of email marketing. Who makes the grade?

The New York Times reports that ABC News and Facebook have partnered in the creation of a new US Politics application. Fred Stutzman summarizes the skeptical reaction in the blogosphere but is himself impressed with the application.