Daily Digest: 3/21/07

The Web on the Candidates

• The search for parkridge47: It's been two weeks since techPresident's Micah Sifry first posted his email exchange with "parkridge47," creator of the Obama/Clinton "Vote Different" video, but the search for his or her true identity continues. In the video's wake, Micah and PDF co-founder Andrew Rasiej have been quoted and interviewed all over the place, including CNN, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Chicago Sun-Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Townhall.com.
• Jeff Jarvis has an idea: let's videotape ourselves asking questions of the presidential candidates, upload them to YouTube, and tag them PREZCONFERENCE. "This way, we’ll see which questions the candidates answer and which they don’t. In the UK, Conservative leader David Cameron answers five questions a week, three of them selected by the voters. We need to hear our candidates answer our questions here." He offers five examples of such videos, taken at at the VON conference at San Jose.
• Townhall's Kathleen Parker thinks John Edwards' hair may be a liability. A video on YouTube showing him primping his hair, set to the song "I Feel Pretty," isn't going away and Parker thinks that isn't a good thing. "Thanks to the omnipresent and unforgiving YouTube -- and the incessant linkage of Web sites -- John Edwards isn't just associated with hair. He is hair," she says. She sees the notorious video as exposing Edwards' vanity, an unforgivable sin in the eyes of American voters: "Vanity belongs to one and only one -- the Self. How absorbed does a self need to be to miss the fact that a camera -- that motor-driven, soul-snatching valet to man's vanity -- is watching?"
• Democracy for America is polling its members about the Democratic field. Their "Live Results" show Barack Obama taking the lead, with John Edwards in second and Dennis Kucinich in third (!), which actually isn't surprising give that DFA grew out of Howard Dean's Dean for America and tilts left.
• Lou Dobbs for President! One web site is infatuated with the CNN commentator and wants him to run for, yes, president. The site's intro awkwardly pleads with Dobbs: "Yes Lou the Independent movement has come and we are it and it is growing everyday. We are patiently awaiting your decision to help us, the people, and to help save our great country before it's too late. We are ready, willing and able." If you're wondering why we should vote for Lou Dobbs, Dr. Alfred Jones, Ph.D. says, "Past presidents have admonished the American people to follow them because they are so important in their own right that they can never be wrong. Although Mr. Dobbs will never hesitate to do what he honestly believes is best for the American people, he will at all times evaluate issues with knowledge, experience and ability."
• Over at the Huffington Post, Adam Hanft is skeptical that the Obama/Hillary 1984 video represents a change in the top-down model of politics. He takes on Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, who said the video "... represents the power of individual activists in a new era...anybody can do powerful emotional ads ...campaigns are no longer in control... ... "It will no longer be a top-down candidate message; that's a 20th century broadcast model." Hanft thinks the ad is only popular because the two Democratic heavy-hitters, the "alpha and omega of the 2008 campaign" are involved. He thinks that despite the video's popularity nothing has really changed: "the reason that Senator Obama is capturing the imagination of American voters is precisely because of the top-down model. What he has to say, and the values he brings to the campaign, are have created the suddenly galvanizing dimension of his candidacy." Another way to look at it: we are still witnessing the birth of "voter-generated content," and there will only be more of it, and it will only become a bigger influence on politics.

The Candidates on the Web

• I didn't think this was possible, but Ron Paul's web site has actually taken a step backward. Gone are the primitive attempts at video (why?) and in their place is a circa-1960's photo of Paul in his Air Force uniform. The photo has that "restored" look you see in the windows of photo-retouching shops, which makes me wonder if, in addition to ignoring the many tools necessary to run a presidential web site in 2007, Paul's web people aren't using Photoshop either. Funnily enough, Paul continues to lead the Republicans in the number of MySpace friends...

In Case You Missed It…

Hillary Responds to “Vote Different”
NY1, the all-news cable channel of New York City, has gotten a response from Hillary Clinton to the “Vote Different” 1984 video. They report that she isn’t worried about the video’s impact.

The Original YouTube Candidate?
Witnessing the continuing brouhaha over the 1984/Vote Different video, it’s easy to think that the 2008 campaigns are the first to play with online video. For the sake of context, it’s worthwhile to take a step back and look at how one previous campaign paved the way for 2008.

“Barack 1984” Tries to Parry “Vote Different”
Heads-up: There’s a response video to Hillary 1984 that’s started circulating on the web.