Citizen-journalists chosen by Decision '08, contest for "Why are you a Democrat/Republican," what do pollworkers of the 21st Century look like?, fears of security threats at the Democratic National Convention, Twitter scandal erupts over fake "speakerpelosi" account, and coded messages directed at Evangelicals in John McCain's "The One" ad.

"The One," the McCain campaign's YouTube video poking at Oprah Winfrey's reference to Barack Obama's supposed chosenness, recently topped 1 million views (making it McCain's second most viral video). You may think the ad is just needling Obama (and his fans) for some of their more chest-thumping moments (i.e. "we are the ones we have been waiting for), and the general reaction to it from the political pundits was that the ad was amusing, that mocking Obama for being messianic was a bit tough but that mostly this was evidence of the McCain campaign starting to take the gloves off. Next story, please.

Well, maybe it's worth another look. The Matthew 25 movement--a group of progressive evangelicals that runs a PAC and has endorsed Obama--is charging that the ad is actually full of coded messages meant to convince evangelical voters that Obama is actually, literally, the anti-Christ.

Myspace and the Commission on President Debates announce a partnership, Paris Hilton responds to McCain campaign's video, McCain continues the "celebrity" attacks, and Republican Twitter movement is hardly a movement at all

It's been a while since I'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...

Several new projects point to the idea that politicos are coming to understand how much social networks matter in 2008; the world's most famous customer service representative jumps into the wired POTUS debate; the DNC wants to preemptively paint the Republican vice presidential candidate as the next Dick Cheney; the #dontgo uprising enters a second week, and we consider whether this hashtag is becoming a full-fledged movement; and so much more it would take require calling Congress back into session to discuss it all properly.

Some netrooters have launched a campaign to push retired General Wes Clark for the Dem VP spot; Capitol Hill is all abuzz with an on-going Republican protest that's being live-Twittered/Qikked/blogged; the hashing over of John McCain's tech-savvy continues; Germans are checking out McCain's "Celeb" ad, but they might not be enjoying it; and so much more that it would take a dozen tweets and three Qik accounts to contain it all.

America is using these relatively quiet days of summer to carefully weigh John McCain and Barack Obama's differing visions for putting America back at the cutting edge of scientific innova...no, not really. Sigh. We're busy talking celebrity this and celebrity blah blah blah blah; Sprinkled across the U.S.A. are nearly 200,000 returned Peace Corps volunteers, and now some of them are trying to bring home some votes for Barack Obama; The Democratic side of the House Education committee has released a snappy movie-trailer style short video promoting the upcoming premiere on the House floor of the Higher Education Opportunity Act; and so much more that it would take a full two episodes of "Behind the Music" to cover it all.

Young voters are asked to make a tremendous sacrifice: lay off the bottle the night before Election Day; the debate continues over the nature of MoveOn; the RNC goes after Barack Obama on his supposed audacity; 10 Downing Street embraces Twitter with both hands; and more -- more, in fact, than you can shake a stick at.

John McCain finally turns to his Senate record defend against attacks on his tech cred; we consider whether MoveOn is a movement or a marketing machine; the newest stars of YouTube seem to be the guys and gals (well, guys, at least) running the presidential campaigns behind the scenes; and an overflowing bucket of other stuff.

A new spot from MoveOn that will become MTV's second ever political ad involves jokey references to STDs and a confusing chicken metaphor -- both things that are big hits with the kids!; an activist group spawned online is pioneering in the cable TV space, using a service that brokers tiny slices of airtime for as little as the cost of a sandwich; the RNC riffs off Facebook to shed some negative attention on Barack Obama's "friends," it we ask if the effort is worth it; and a great deal more, my friends, a great deal more.