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Daily Digest: 2/14/07

BY Joshua Levy | Wednesday, February 14 2007

The Web on the Candidates

  • A Rightwingnews.com poll suggests that Duncan Hunter has gained significant new support among the conservative netroots. Newt Gingrich was the most popular potential candidate, followed by Hunter and Mitt Romney. Chuck Hagel, George Pataki, and John McCain were very unpopular among the 230 participants in the poll.
  • The Politico and MSNBC are sponsoring the first GOP debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, CA on May 3. It will be broadcast online on the Politico's web site, where viewers can submit questions to the candidates.
  • Republican strategist and Giuliani campaigner Patrick Ruffini writes that the "Democratic nomination fight will eat up two thirds or more of the media’s 2008 coverage over the next year," which is a "way for the media to show its bias without being ideological." They will focus on the fight among Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards and pay less attention to the GOP battle for the nomination. Eyeon08 compares media numbers for Mitt Romney and Barack Obama and finds that Obama is getting a lot more attention.

The Candidates on the Web

  • Ron Paul gets dugg. The Congressman's speech before the House warning against war with Iran was posted on LewRockwell.com, which advertises itself as "anti-state, anti-war, pro-market." Meanwhile, Paul's exploratory web site is still completely dormant. Why isn't he posting these things there?
  • Rudy Giuliani is wooing Silicon Valley. This week he spoke to a crowd of techies and venture capitalists at the Churchill Club and met with VC's Tim Draper and Floyd Kvamme. This increased attention comes, in part, from news that the California legislature is considering moving its primary to February, increasing its role in the choosing of the nominees. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, and Tom Vilsack will all stop by over the next week.
  • Joe Biden blogger Erin Medlicott explain the need for cash in her "'Welcome to the Blog' - Week Three" post: "Each of us has received e-mail and snail mail solicitations, especially prior to last November’s midterm elections. You know the ones…signed by Howard Dean and Jimmy Carter and Jesse Jackson and Al Gore. They mentioned how crucial it was to get your donation in, and how important you would be to the Democratic Congressional win." Oddly, the post reads little like a blog post and a lot like... those e-mail soliciations.
  • Biden continues to dominate his home page with giant faces; it now features four images of Biden and one large image of his wife, Jill, that belongs to her video message about education. The only (indirect) reference to voters continues to be the red "contribute" button in the top right corner.
  • Jon Jones, Barack Obama's head blogger, reports some impressive numbers: over the last three days 40,000 people came out to see Obama in Iowa and New Hampshire; 14.2 million people tuned into the 60 Minutes special on Obama this past Sunday night; and 70,000 people have joined the online community at on Obama's site.

Hillary's blog countdown

News Briefs

RSS Feed yesterday >

What Twitter Won't Tell You About the Election

A new study released on Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press on Tuesday offers the opportunity to get real about what the political conversation on Twitter and Facebook can — or can't — tell you about the progression of the 2012 political campaign. Pew has found that even among users of Twitter and Facebook, a paltry percentage of people use social networks to get news about politics: Only 24 percent of Twitter users in the sample and 25 percent of Facebook users said they "sometimes" got campaign news through that network, while a full 40 percent of Twitter users in the sample and 46 percent of other social media users reported "never" getting campaign news through either Twitter or Facebook. GO

Navigating New York's "Road Map for the Digital City," One Year In

In May 2011, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg revealed a "Road Map for the Digital City," a plan to use technology to make city government more and participatory, and to leverage the city's tech sector for economic and civic gains.

New York City Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne will join our editorial director, Micah Sifry, on a conference call this Friday afternoon to discuss the progress on that road map so far. The call is free and open to anyone to join. You can sign up here.

GO

tuesday >

Pete Hoekstra's Campaign Website's "Offensive" Source Code Changed After Outcry

As if "chop suey fonts" and obvious graphic allusions to the stereotype of the Chinese as the Yellow Peril weren't controversial enough, the group that created an incendiary microsite for former Rep. Pete Hoekstra's campaign has managed to further fan the flames with what it's calling a mistake in its code. GO

Fidel Castro Loves the Internet

“The Internet is a revolutionary instrument that permits the receiving and transmission of ideas, in both directions, that is something we should know how to use,” Fidel Castro told a crowd of supporters on Feb. 4, according to the state-owned Cuban newspaper Granma International. Castro, who made his first public appearance since April 2011, launched his two-volume memoir, “Guerilla of Time,” and took the opportunity to discuss issues of importance to him. Earlier this week, Miranda Neubauer reported that one of these topics was the need for the Internet. Castro has been a proponent of the Internet as a tool for the exchange of ideas since 2003, but the average Cuban citizen faces great difficulty getting online. GO

Claire McCaskill Hires Blue State Digital's Alex Kellner As Digital Director

Missouri's senior Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill has hired Blue State Digital's Alex Kellner as its digital director. GO

Controversial Hoekstra Microsite Targeting Debbie Stabenow Created By The Prosper Group

Michigan Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra has caused a firestorm in the past 24 hours with a new campaign ad that depicts China as a young woman riding a bike in a rural area speaking in broken English. The thirty second spot aired in Michigan during the Super Bowl on Sunday, and it accuses Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow of aiding ... GO

White House CTO Aneesh Chopra's Exit Interview

On his way out of the White House and back to Virginia, where he is expected to run for public office — but will neither confirm or deny that's the plan — Aneesh Chopra describes the shape of the post he pioneered as the country's first-ever chief technology officer.

As a result of Chopra's interview with The Atlantic's tech/politics correspondent, Nancy Scola, there's now a public record of what this first-ever CTO thinks the CTO's job actually is ("On any topic that is a priority for the president, my role is evaluate how technology, data, and innovation can advance, support, and improve upon those strategies," among other things) and how it might be improved.

GO

friday >

Slovenian ambassador apologizes for signing ACTA, Poland halts ratification

Apparently, some EU countries are reconsidering their support to ACTA, only a week after signing the agreement.
Helena Drnovsek Zorko, Slovenia's ambassador to Japan, has in fact issued a public apology to her country for signing it. Meanwhile, Poland Prime Minister Donald Tusk says he's halting the ratification process of the international treaty.
Last week people took the streets in Poland, and a protest is planned in Ljubljana tomorrow. GO

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