Last night's debate is roundly criticized on liberal blogs; a new site asks Obama supporters to add their testimonials; a London Mayoral candidate will hold a live chat with voters; a nostalgic look at voter-generated video from Eyeblast.tv; James Kotecki gets serious; Obama is Apple, Hillary is Microsoft. Really?; Allison fine, co-editor of our Rebooting America project, will be interviewed live and online next week; and Hillary is following exactly ZERO people on Twitter.

The MySpace Primary launches, underwhelms; James Kotecki asks why Ron Paul's supporters are overwhelmingly male; a new bumper crop of bloggers rises in Iowa; a new pro-Huckabee group attacks Mitt Romney; the God-o-Meter charts the Godliest candidates; who are new video jabs from Huckabee and Romney aimed at?; and Huckabee pulls a mysterious (and expensive) ad campaign at the last minute.

After the YouTube-CNN Debate, I spent some time in the "Spin Room" talking with folks about their thoughts on the Republican debate. (I did the same thing at the Democratic YouTube debate earlier this year.)

Below, find short vlogs from Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter, Patrick Ruffini, Robert Bluey, Mary Katharine Ham, James Kotecki, Jose Antonio Vargas, Meghan McCain, Charlie Smith, and, wait for it... Chuck Norris.

Ready.
Set.
Go.

Getting ready for tonight's CNN/YouTube debate; it's good to see all of the Republicans participating, and the introduction of user-submitted videos is a welcome change, but we're still wishing it involved the public in the question selection process; debate executive producer David Borhman continues to be skeptical of allowing the pubic to choose the questions; UStream is becoming a significant player in online political video; James Kotecki takes a bath, guest curates YouTube's front page; the DNC announces a new video library of Republican campaign appearances; John Edwards launches a new anti-lobbyist project; and Hillary and Barack both teach their supporters how to caucus.

Slate writers on the glories of Google Suggest; James Kotecki officially joins the Politico; are DailyKos' traffic numbers artificially inflated by Sitemeter?; the lack of social conservatives online; techPresident is profiled by the Washington Post; Leon Wolf leaves the Brownback campaign; Marc Ambinder thinks Chris Dodd's web team is the most innovative out there; Barack Obama and the 21st-century fireside chat; a report from Elizabeth Edwards' meetup with mommy bloggers; and Obama's blog outreach guy leaves the campaign.

James Kotecki, everyone's favorite political videoblogger (and one of the first to cover the 2008 election) graduated from college this spring. That not only meant no more videos from his dorm room, but also the eventuality that he would have to get a job.

That day has come, but don't worry, we won't be starved for any Kotecki action.

More Wikipedia un-controversies are uncovered, thanks to WikiScanner; Wired talks to David All about his Modern Media Strategies workshop; James Kotecki realizes that the candidates have been BREAKING THE LAW; Cracked produces a parody of the CNN/YouTube debate; Todd Zeigler on the most-viewed YouTube videos from the Dems; and more Facebook and MySpace friends could mean more votes.

James Kotecki, a.k.a. EmergencyCheese on YouTube, is likely a well-known personality for this crowd. And James' appeal as a citizen journalist and YouTube "guru," dispatching his advice to candidates on how best to connect with the YouTube community, has doled up its fair-share of press from the mainstream media.

But now, James... is the mainstream media. At least, sort of. And its his experience jumping from "Citizen Journalist" to "Journalist" that I wanted to include in this space through an email interview with James.

The quick background is that James went to the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa as a paid freelancer for one of our favorite stops, the Politico.com. You can see all of the products of his experience on his YouTube channel.

Let's dig in...

William Beutler of Blog P.I. has a nice update/analysis of Mitt Romney's jump in to the YouTube pool.

What I find most interesting is that Mitt's eGuy, Stephen Smith, left a comment on Beutler's post which tells me two things: 1. Smith is paying attention to what people are saying about his guy. 2. Smith has been given "permission" to be a "spokesblogger" for the campaign.

Keep going...

The Web on the Candidates

A commenter on Jeff Jarvis' Buzzmachine says that "there's a big elephant in the room on viral video for politics," which is that as more political advertising (and eyeballs) end up on YouTube, local broadcast stations will lose their most cherished sources of funding, similar to the way Craigslist has challenged newspapers' classified ads model.  The dominant advertising mode is still TV, Jarvis writes, but it won't be that way forever: "All political advertising won’t migrate online yet because the audience on broadcast is bigger and campaigns are inherently conservative. But there will be a point of no return."   

James Kotecki's new video takes a look at the most popular videos on YouTube that feature politicians doing or saying something stupid.  He isn't sure that, in the end, these assorted "macaca" moments will ultimately affect the race, since the more we record candidates' every move, the more likely they'll get caught making gaffes, and we'll become used to the idea that candidates make mistakes.  Kotecki ends with a sorta-funny montage of his own "gaffes."