The Obama campaign has launched a microsite at FightTheSmears.com, debunking the attacks du jour against him (and his wife). But why exactly did the campaign feel compelled to do this, and why won’t we be seeing a similar site from the McCain campaign? A quick visit to Snopes.com may offer an explanation.

John McCain's often aimless email messages are something of a recurring theme here at techPresident, so much so that we're dubbing the topic "McCain Email Watch."  Patrick Ruffini got us started with a post on the "fundamental disconnect" of McCain's "stitled" online personality, and I followed up on a distinct lack of links in a recent McCain campaign email.

But McCain's email problems are worse than we first thought.  Case-in-point: today's fundraising message that offered a 3'x6' personalized banner for the low price of $250.

The John McCain campaign has been pilloried time and time again when it comes to their email strategy. The emails are overly long, unclear, and designed as if they were a piece of direct mail. But, as a public service to all campaigns and organizations looking to execute solid online organzing, I thought it would be illustrative to point out exactly what makes an email successful.

John McCain's online team needs to find someone who knows what they're doing with the campaign's email list. Campaign manager Rick Davis sent an email to supporters this afternoon titled "Reckless" - clocking in at 597 words - without including a single link until the 580th word.

Maybe now it's time for a conversation? That's why Hillary Clinton's new lead campaign strategist seems to be trying with a new email that's just out.

Remember the Email Wars of 2007, when Chris Dodd would send an email designed to look like it was quickly tapped out on a BlackBerry, and Barack Obama would do the same (plagiarist!) two days later? Then Bill Richardson would forward a message from his staffer as if he was sending pictures of cats around the office; Obama would return fire by having one of his supporters send us an email in his stead; and Dodd remained the king by sending yet more stripped-down emails featuring impressive brevity and lack of HTML formatting. Those were the days.

You know when something is spreading online when your friends ask you about it spontaneously. That's how I heard about feminist Robin Morgan's online rallying cry for Hillary Clinton, "Goodbye To All That (#2)," which has been circulating widely since she posted it on the Women's Media Center website on February 2nd. And then Chelsea Clinton started forwarding it around...

Which would you rather have: A million-member email list or a network of 25,000 bloggers and 20,000 fundraisers? A look at Clinton vs Obama's metrics leads me to one answer: a network is more powerful than a list.

Hillary Clinton's online operation is adapting the traditional tactics of polling and direct mail to survey subscribers of the campaign's email list.  Political campaigns have always contacted donors and potential supporters via phone polls or direct mail appeals, but Clinton's campaign is going one step further, applying similar techniques to obtain a potentially more honest portrait of its email list. 

I wrote about this survey on Huffington Post's Off the Bus, but come take a look at some of my findings after the jump.

Chris Dodd’s campaign just sent out another email that helps them reclaim their throne as the champions of the plain-text-I’m-just-following-up-on-what-so-and-so-said email wars.

“I made a few small changes to your email draft — you’ll see them below.  Would have sent to the entire list myself, but I could only figure out how to send this test,” Dodd Campaign Manager Sheryl Cohen “writes.”