Daily Digest: Forget Sod. Will Obama's Bill Stimulate the Grassroots?

• "We Will Run Campaigns in Their Districts": Even after dropping a $20 million provision for resodding the National Mall, Barack Obama's $819 billion stimulus package came up with a big goose egg when it comes to Republican votes in the House. And that's not to mention the 11 "no" votes in the Democratic column. So is this when the President turns for backup to the masses of supporters he gained during the campaign? Yesterday Nancy Scola explored why Obama hasn't yet fired up his grassroots networks to shape public opinion on the massive bill. But Politico's Mike Allen reports that Democrats are getting ready to start a ground fight. MoveOn and some labor groups are, Allen reports, running TV advertisements like this one. Called "Factory," it soft sells the "Obama Plan for Jobs." The target: moderate Republicans in hard-hit places like Maine, New Hampshire, and Iowa. Allen quotes one "Democratic official" making the approach plain: "We will run campaigns in their districts."

• Recovery.gov -- A Chance To Transform Transparency: Included in the House version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is a provision that establishes Recovery.gov as a hub for oversight on where those many billions get spent. The Sunlight Foundation's John Wonderlich has a wonderful post making a critical point: in the minds of many, government transparency is quickly transforming from a "what" to a "how."* That is, Washington is grokking that it isn't enough to thow up a website and say, "Voila! Accountability!" Transparency requires thinking through the, frankly, mind-numbing details of how data gets structured and what information bits link to which other bits. Case in point: An amendment proposed to the House bill that would include require Recovery.gov to include links to job resources created as part of the plan. Wonderlich's post is well worth a full read, and even perhaps a re-read.

• Coleman's IP-gate: Senator-in-limbo Norm Coleman's campaign staff is claiming that the combined attention of "tens of thousands" of disenfranchised and otherwise angry Minnesotans has brought his website crashing down. Not so, says some in the know, as Minnesota Independent's Paul Schmelzer reports. For one thing, says web experts, colemanforsenate.com is pointing to the IP address 1.1.1.1 -- basically a dead end.

• We'll Declare a Web 3.0 Winner Just as Soon as We Figure Out What Web 3.0 Is: In a piece on whether the online right should seek to mimic the left's netroots, Slate's Christopher Beam captures a great quote from the Next Right's Jon Henke. Henke gives his take on why the right's found itself playing catch-up online. "Governing the castle is difficult and not really as much fun," says Henke. "It's not conducive to the online environment." The right, of course, has found itself lifted of that burden, with the House, Senate, and White House now in the hands of Democrats. So what's next? In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Karl Rove argues that "[t]he party that figures out where Web 3.0 goes will grab the decisive high ground in high-tech warfare." Sounds great! But what's "Web 3.0" mean, exactly? Even Rove doesn't seem to have much of a clue. At least, not one that he's sharing with the rest of us.

• A Day in the Life of House Republicans: House Minority Leader John Boehner narrates a new four-minute behind-the-scenes look at how the stimulus bill vote went down in the House yesterday. It's pretty masterful work. Here's Boehner and the rest of the rest of the Republican leadership plot strategy to defend the American taxpayer! There they rush down the hallway to counter a press conference held by Speaker Nancy Pelosi! Democrats have been fairly silent when it comes to framing the bill, not only on video but also on Twitter. Witness the tweets pouring out of a recent congressional GOP meeting with Obama, as detailed by the Hill's Michael O'Brien.

• Anuzis, Saltsman Address Rebuild the Party: Of the six candidates for RNC chair, just Saul Anuzis and Chip Saltsman have responded to RebuildtheParty.com's candidate forum. Anuzis's video answers were filmed in a Missouri Days Inn, while Saltsman's was shot in front of a bank of computer monitors. (But never say that the guy's not open-minded: two are Mac and one is Windows.) If Anuzis in particular wins tomorrow's vote, expect much talk about the tech angle. Anuzis has put a great deal of his chips on being the candidate most capable of leading the GOP out of the online wilderness.

• Friends of Clinton Launch NoLimits.org: Hillary Clinton shuttered her long-running HillPAC upon becoming Secretary of State. In its place has arisen "No Limits," run by Clinton campaign communications director Ann Lewis. No, no, don't get the wrong idea. This isn't HillPac version 2.0 -- even if the links embedded in the email introducing the group run through HillaryClinton.com. "NoLimits.org isn't a political organization," writes Lewis. "It's a community." We're waiting to see how this community will be more engaging than HRC's last effort. An hour after one of us joined, not even a thank-you email back.

• A Broken Transparency Promise?: This just in as we go to press: Sunlight's Paul Blumenthal notes that by posting the text of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act only after it was signed by the President, the White House seems to have gone back on a promise to subject non-emergency legislation for a five-day online public vetting.

In Case You Missed It...

Colin Delany makes the point that the Obama new media staff was, importantly, considered part of the campaign's communications apparatus, not a piece of the tech team -- an organizational approach that they seem to be replicating in the White House.

And our Micah Sifry discussed governing 2.0 on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's "Future Tense" program with Blue State Digital's Ben Self and CNET's Declan McCullagh. Give it a listen.

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