Daily Digest: Huckabee Is An Ewok?

The Web on the Candidates

• Polls used to be the only tools we had to measure the horse-race campaign (not that that’s all we should be doing), but, as Jeff Jarvis writes in the Guardian, “now the internet gives us new metrics to spot, measure, predict - and influence - public thinking.” He gives examples of how we can track media coverage, search trends, blog mentions, and advertising funds, and more using a number of data-crunching sites (including ours). Does this data and the knowledge we hope it brings actually move us beyond horse-race coverage? I’m not so sure, but in elections, more (accurate) information is almost always a good thing, so bring it on.

• Blogger Gen. JC Christian writes the blog Jesus’ General
  in a parodic, uber-manly and over-conservative voice. He’s also used Second Life to great effect in the past, producing Disco Rudy’s, a build that pilloried Rudy for a number of perceived transgressions. Now the General has returned to Second Life, producing the “Mike Huckabee Center for the Liberation and Housing of Spermatazoan-Americans,” a build dedicated to preserving “the rights of our tiniest citizens, the spermatazoan-Americans.” The build really comes out of Christian’s anger at Mike Huckabee’s endorsement by the Georgia Right to Life PAC, and it goes to extremes to make its point. You don’t have to go to Second Life to check it out — the post has lots of bizarre pictures that get the piont across. To be honest, if you’re a bit squeamish you might want to sit this one out.

• But this is not a joke: Al Qaeda has taken the Slashdot approach to interviewing, announcing that bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri would be taking questions online from the public. CNN has a good rundown of the questions that were asked, many of which focused on the terror network’s radically decentralized structure and were centered around, “when will you come to my area of the world?” Talk about bizarre. When will they launch their Facebook application?

• We’ve been watching the presidential contest for almost twelve months, and have seen about 18 candidates whittled down to 11 (and sure to get smaller this week), but one question has remained unanswered: which Star Wars characters to they remind us of? Thankfully one Craigslist user has come to the rescue with the “Mighty Rex Star Wars Guide to The Candidates.” Abridged version: John McCain is Darth Vader, John Edwards is Han Solo, Mike Gravel is Chewbacca(!), Barack Obama is Princess Leah(?), and — this one had me rolling — Mike Huckabee is Wicket, the head Ewok.

  You’ve gotta see the rest for yourself.

The Candidates on the Web

• Ron Paul has launched a section of his site called Grassroots Central to help recruit precinct leaders across the country. So far the campaign has recruited almost 10,000 precinct leaders, an impressive number. But although he’s beaten Rudy Giuliani in the primaries, Paul is still lagging far behind the frontrunners in the race for the Republican nomination, though he did better than ever in Nevada, bringing in $1.25 million a couple of days after that primary. He’s hoping more effort on the ground help transform his online energy into some better results.

• Jim Puzzanghera at the Los Angeles Times profiles the former Yahoo! exec Cyrus Krohn, who’s now running the Republican National Committee’s online operations. Krohn led a good life in California while working for the tech industry, but decided to torture himself (and take a pay cut) when he realized he wanted to work to put a Republican in the White House. One of his first tasks was to remodel the RNC’s website, which he did to some acclaim. Also, “Krohn blogs. He Twitters. He’s joined just about every social networking site out there.” If that doesn’t make him legit, what will?

In Case You Missed It…

Micah Sifry noticed that President Bush or one of his ghost-writers had time to post some “Trip Notes From the Middle East” that are almost bloggish in their style. Now we know who picks out the president’s suits and ties.