The Web on the Candidates

• Robert Novak is reporting that Fred Thompson, advised by Web 2.0 visionary Newt Gingrich (I kid), will be announcing his candidacy with an online video.  Wow, what are those?   As Election Geek points out, the bigger news in Novak's piece is that Gingrich, who continues to hint at a run himself, has been advising Thompson.  "Former House Speaker Gingrich has indicated he will run only if Thompson does not or his late-starting campaign crashes and burns," Novak writes. 
• Is the web a prediction machine or a participation promoter?  Josh Catone, writing in Read/Write Web, asks if the Internet matters in election politics (!).  Provocations aside, he points to the discrepancies between nationwide polling numbers favoring Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, and a consistent preference online for Barack Obama and Ron Paul.  And in 2004 Howard Dean "flamed out and was a footnote by February."  The verdict? The Internet is important because it's a good way for candidates to get their message out.  But what about the, er, read/write web?  While Catone acknowledges that the CNN/YouTube debate and the upcoming MTV/MySpace forums are "great ways for voters to genuinely connect with candidates on issues that matter to them," he's missing out on the fact that friending candidates, blogging about the race, and uploading and favoriting videos is getting voters involved in an unprecedented way.  This is something worth talking about, and not because it does or doesn't predict anything.  Also, if you were at Yearly Kos, surrounded by ex-Dean staffers working on '08 campaigns, and listening to his fiery speech about reinvigorating the Democratic party, you might reconsider the "flame out" idea.

The Candidates on the Web

• Wired's Sarah Lai Stirland previews Barack Obama's new youth organizing initiative, Generation Obama ("GO," get it?) and likes what she sees. The initiative prods young supporters to use their social networks (online and offline) to bring their friends and acquaintances into the Obama fold, and gives them online tools to do so.  This stuff is getting so simple, and so integrated into supporters' lives, that Stirland asks, "Could Campaign 2008 be the easiest voting experience ever?"  An interesting thought...
• What do Barack Obama, Sam Brownback, and Ron Paul have in common?  If you guessed support for the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, you're right.  Alec MacGillis, writing at The Washington Post's The Trail, calls the Act "a kind of Google for the federal government" that will "allow citizens to look up any company, organization or other entity receiving federal contracts, grants and earmarks."  The three were the only candidates to sign a pledge, submitted by the Reason Foundation, stating that they'd direct "all departments and agencies to join in the "timely implementation of the letter and spirit" of the act" in the first 30 days of their administration.

In Case You Missed It...

Greg Bloom sees politicians' use of Facebook, and their open friending of supporters, as "the establishment of a new channel of communication between a citizen and a political leader - nothing more or less."  So why aren't pols taking advantage of it?