The Big Tent seeks to be a refuge and workspace for new media types gathering in Denver next week, and we wondering if what happens there might not be more interesting than what happens inside the Pepsi Center; McCain's tech policy is tracked back to his campaign's ties to the tech industry; a fake VP SMS fools some Virginia politicos; and a whole lot more.

It simply boggles my mind that neither the Republican or Democratic Party websites link to their respective convention websites from their homepages. Nor do they even mention the conventions--no dates, no locations, no nothing!

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.

The folks out in Mountain View jump into political waters with both feet; the Democratic fundraising hub ActBlue has raised what is technically known in the field as "gobs and gobs of cash;" we indulge our Olympic obsession; l'affair Edwards exposes a rift in the liberal blogosphere; a former Clinton Administration official challenges McCain's recollection of his tech accomplishments on Capitol Hill; and quite a tremendous amount more.

Little-noticed in all the hubbub about Obama's promise to announce his VP pick first by text-message is the news that his campaign has launched a full-blown mobile platform designed to work on most web-enabled phones. As far as I know, this is a first for a presidential campaign.

A campaign to sink the possible VP nomination of Indiana senator Evan Bayh might be putting some holes in that particular trial balloon; the reviews from technologists on McCain's tech policy proposals continue to pour in; some on the online left debate the merits of party platforms; and a great deal more.

Just two years ago, the modern age of YouTube/Web Video Politics began:

On 8.11.06, Sen. George Allen, a shoo-in for reelection and early favorite for the GOP 08 pres nomination, called Web Campaign video tracker S.R. Sidarth "Macaca." On 8.14.08, the Webb campaign, unable to get TV stations to take the video and run with the story, posted it on the new video service, YouTube, which as of then was not on anyone's political radar.

The rest is history.

Obama reaches 2 million donors, BarelyPolitical barely keeps my attention, McCain's tech policy review, techPresident is honored with a nomination, Obama and McCain's YouTube channels

"Drill Here, Drill Now" will give you gas, MyBO gets people riled up with new scoring system, McCain will announce a tech policy, more video-generated content

#1 Digg video is anti-McCain voter-generated content; Facebook (anti-)campaigns for Vice President; C-SPAN gets searchable, linkable, AND embeddable; Convention website showdown; NYTimes Op-Ed on the power of text messaging; McCain's tech policy (lack thereof); Organizing tips for #dontGo