The Web on the Candidates

• A "Landmark" of Epic Distortions: MySpace and the Commission on President Debates (CPD) have announced a partnership today that will allow users to watch a live webstream of the upcoming debates at MyDebates.org. They are calling it a “landmark internet partnership.” Frankly, the word “landmark” has never sounded so disappointing: to techPresident editor Micah Sifry, it sounds more like a shack.
  
  The CPD announcement uses some form of the word “engage” six times, which proves that if you say something enough times you can convince even yourself that it is true. Engage sounds good right? One of these ways is that users "will be polled periodically throughout the debates with short questions” and will be able to respond with “thumbs-up/down.” How engaging! We here at techPresident give this “landmark internet partnership” an emphatic thumbs down.#

• A Citizen-Driven Alternative: Ari Melber digs further into the debate news and notes that the CPD/MySpace announcement also probably means there will be no Google/YouTube forum, as was planned for New Orleans September 18. He writes that the Google proposal offered "a citizen-driven alternative to the TV debates where anchors frame and referee every interaction that the nominees have" and criticizes the CPD's approach as "a broadcast model online -- another platform for people to consume debate content, not help shape it."#

• Prez Hilton?: There are distractions in politics and then there are distractions from the distractions. Paris Hilton flexes her media-might with her response to John McCain’s “Celeb” ad released a week ago today. Yesterday on FunnyOrDie.com, she tongue-in-cheek announced her candidacy for President in this ad and, if this is any indication, will be running a much more positive campaign than McCain. The video already has over 2.6 million views and it has only been 18 hours. “Celeb” was a viral hit, amassing over 1.6 million views in a week, but a lot of that attention can probably be attributed to buzz-power of Paris Hilton. Creator of the Paris for Prez video Adam McKay (writer of Step Brothers, Talladega Nights, and Anchorman) thinks the McCain campaign should be careful on how it intends to generate viral hits: “McCain made one huge mistake: He drifted into the world of pop culture.”#

The Candidates on the Web

• Celebrity, minus the Celebrities: The McCain campaign is continuing the “celebrity" attack on Obama with a new ad “Family” released today that unfortunately is missing Paris, Britney, or the Montauk Monster. #

• Checkin' the Charts: It's been a while since we've checked in on our charts tracking how the campaigns are doing on the web, and even though we're now firmly headed into the August doldrums before the national conventions, some interesting trends are worth noting. In a word: Obama keeps adding friends, but McCain has been gaining traffic. And Bob Barr seems to have some real grass-roots support...click here for more details#

TechCongress and Beyond

• All Twitter, No Bite: For the last few days, the online right has had a field day organizing around the Congressional recess, demanding that the House come back into session to vote on expanding offshore oil drilling. But yesterday the #dontgo movement got a taste of their own theatrical medicine, when a handful of leftie net activists, led by our own Liza Sabater, launched a "Twitter bomb" and turned the tables on the right, flooding the #dontgo hashtag with snarky anti-drilling messages. Liza's got the whole story here, and she raises a good point: was the traditional media too quick to cover the House protests? Do a few new websites -- http://dontgo.us/ and http://dontgomovement.com/ -- really equal a movement, as Patrick Ruffini argues? One measure of this "movement's" depth should be how much its activists put their money where their mouths are, and judging by the #dontgo page on Slatecard where a total of one supporter [!] has donated $100, there ain't much there there. Of course, it's still way to early to tell and we'll be watching this closely.

  One thing is clear about this episode--it's been a galvanizing event for what David All would call "modern" Republicans, and it's pulled several more Republican Congressmen into the new media mix, with now six regularly using Twitter for what DontGoMovement.com founder Eric Odom calls "collaborative politics."#