The Web on the Candidates

• Twitter has claimed it’s first political victim. Conservative blogger and John McCain aide Soren Dayton was suspended from the campaign yesterday for posting a link to the “Is Obama Wright” video on Twitter. Yup, that’s it. The campaign saw the act as a violation of McCain’s own decree to stay away from personal attacks on Obama. While the move makes sense from the campaign’s point of view, we kinda feel bad for Dayton, who had been a perceptive follower of the race before joining the McCain campaign. Townhall’s Matt Lewis is less diplomatic, accusing the McCain campaign of throwing Dayton under the bus.

• Blogger Zennie Abraham writes that less than 48 hours after Barack Obama gave his big speech on race, videos of it had been viewed more than four million times, and 15 of the top 20 videos in the News and Politics section were of that speech (a bunch of different versions are floating around). Abraham also comes up with a fun (albeit not so scientific) piece of data: if Obama’s videos were television shows worthy of the Nielsen ratings, the speech would have rated a five, for five million views.

• Small donors have played a huge role in the 2008 campaigns, writes the Wall Street Journal’s Mary Jacoby, possibly diluting the influence of big money. But the small-donor trend is unique to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and even they relied on big money until recently. John McCain — who announced that he raised $11 million in February — is still relying on big donors, as are many congressional candidates. Why aren’t people using the web to donate to smaller races? TechPresident contributor David All has a theory: “What I’m finding is a lot of Republican campaigns are just hiring college kids or using their son who has a Facebook account. They don’t understand what this is all about.” See what happens when you give the keys to the kids?

• The winners of the second annual YouTube video awards were announced this week, and in the political category the winner was… not Obama girl. Though she was nominated. Instead, the winner was Avaaz.org’s Clash of Civilizations, a serious call for peace and reconciliation. So boring. Bring back the bikini-clad girls jumping around in the water with the candidates and avoiding the issues!

The Candidates on the Web

• Despite sharing nachos and dip with Bill Clinton on Super Bowl Sunday, former Democratic candidate Bill Richardson announced he’s endorsing Barack Obama. Eager to tout the news, Obama’s campaign posted an announcement on his site. With March Madness upon us, will Obama and Richardson be sharing brackets?

In Case You Missed It…

Whether voters were convinced by it or not, most would agree that Barack Obama’s speech on race was a big moment in the 2008 race. We show it in our favorite videos of the week, along with a few video responses. Also, Ron Paul’s avatar rears its underwater head, FOX spreads some “news” about Obama, and Schoolhouse Rocks talks legislation.

Yesterday Micah Sifry was lucky to be present as Larry Lessig announced his new project, Change-Congress.org. He posted his notes from the talk, paraphrasing Lessig as well as he could.