Daily Digest: 5/31/07
BY Joshua Levy | Thursday, May 31 2007
The Web on the Candidates
- John Edwards stopped by the YouTube studio yesterday to record an interview with politics editor Steve Grove. It started as a gregarious interview, with Grove jokingly asking if Edwards spent the Memorial Day weekend on a beach in South Carolina (Edwards answered that he spent the weekend attending 13 town hall meetings), but it soon turned thoughtful. Edwards answered a few user-submitted questions ("What's your biggest fault?") and became especially reflective when discussing his wife Elizabeth's cancer. Grove ended with a "shotgun" round of questions in which he asked Edwards to answer if he though certain things should be rights or priveleges for Americans. When asked about handgun ownership and citizenship for workers who have lived in the U.S. for one year, Edwards took a moment before responding "privilege," and the interview came to an end soon after. Despite our insistence on unscripted, off-the-cuff video, this interview was well done and showed a different side of Edwards than we are used to seeing.
The Candidates on the Web
- Fred Thompson is now, sort-of, kinda, officially running for President, I think. He plans to formally announce in early July, but he's pretty much said he's running. The press continues to discuss how he will run and "unconventional" campaign, which means not only will he wear flannel shirts and drive a red pick-up truck, but he will also take advantage of online media. "He's planning a campaign that will use blogs, video posts and other Internet innovations to reach voters repelled by politics-as-usual in both parties," writes Susan Page in USA Today. While some critics charge that it's out of laziness that he's turning to the web rather than pounding the pavement, he told Page that a candidate could use the web "to cut through the clutter and go right to the people." Thompson has already been blogging on ABC (I suppose that will have to stop) and posted a humorous and well-watched response to Michael Moore on YouTube, so he does seem to instinctively understand how to use the web to "cut through the clutter."
- John McCain was interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher of the Wall Street Journal for the D:All Things Digital conference, where, among other things, they asked him about Net Neutrality, government regulation of the telecom industry, and copyright protection. McCain believes there should be as little regulation of the broadband as possible. "When you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment," he said (I wonder if Ted Stevens helped him with that). He does believe we should reform our copyright laws since some in Congress don't fully understand the issues. (thanks Election Geek!)
In Case You Missed It...
David All has 82,000 reasons why Web 2.0 matters at every level of politics.
Micah Sifry asks how much lower-level political candidates should adopt Web 2.0 technologies.
John Edwards has announced his support for auctioning off a new chunk of the wireless spectrum to companies working in underserved and rural areas.
Mike Turk wants to know "Who is John Durham?" He's not quite who he says he is.