Daily Digest: In Local Blogging, Conservatives Spy Opening

• Right Aims to Play Catch Up on State Blogs: Patrick Ruffini is on to something. The conservative consultant is sounding an alarm that progressives would rather he'd rather just hush up about: the online right is seriously outgunned when it comes to political blogging happening on the local level. And the trend for conservatives isn't a good one. Ruffini perceptively notes that as more and more jobs in "mainstream" media are going the way of the dodo, good reporters are going to find themselves landing at self-brand liberal presses like the Huffington Post and Talking Points Memo. Ruffini's solution? Project Battleground -- a recruitment project aimed at cultivating state-level conservative bloggers. Interestingly, though, ProBat "will focus more on electoral than policy battles."

• Are the Networks Ready to Organize for Obama?: In a video that seems to have been filmed in an unfinished Ikea showroom, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe introduces Mitch Stewart as the new director of Organizing for America, a.k.a. Obama for America -- the Next Generation. Stewart, the Obama Iowa caucus director and Virginia lead during the general, wastes no time getting to the crux of the matter. The goal of the DNC-housed OFA, says Stewart, isn't to serve as the organizing wing of the Democratic Party. Rather, its reason for being is to "assist President Obama on the legislative issues so critical to our country." The quite serious question -- and the one probably keeping Stewart up at night -- is whether the network that delivered Obama the White House is ready, willing, and able to act as foot soldiers in his legislative battles.

• Beware the White House Spin Zone: And here's another critical angle on the "whither Obama's network" question. When he was a presidential candidate, Obama's routing around the traditional press (via MyBO, YouTube, etc.) had a sticking-it-to-the-man quality that was appealing to many of us. But now that Obama is, categorically, the man, do his networks and projects like Organizing for America raise the specter of an American President let unchecked by a vigilant, watchdog press? Give this piece from the New York Times' Jim Rutenberg and Adam Nagourney a read to get the outlines of the question. The word you'll hear thrown about is "propaganda." A clearer way to think about it, though, is that what comes out of the White House is, by definition, going to be just one side of any story. A White House press corps deserving of the job will have to be willing to occasionally challenge not only a recalcitrant press secretary, but the millions of us hearing directly from the President's mouth.

• Tech Hits from 2001 to 2009: Wired's Nicholas Thompson has put together a great -- if short -- list of some of the better uses of federal online tech during the Bush Administration.

• A Look at Obama's Governing Style is Always Only One Click Away: NPR's Linton Weeks asks if WhiteHouse.gov will become a "window into Obama's soul." That is, the site could serve as a demonstration of his administration's commitment to open, participatory, two-way government. But it also could prove to be a 24-hour-a-day reminder of the disconnect (perceived or otherwise) between rhetoric and fact.

• Archiving Past Presidents: What happens to soul windows of presidents gone by? In other words, where did George Bush's WhiteHouse.gov go? Blogger Jason Kottke suggests that each POTUS get a directory, so Bush's site would live forever at whitehouse.gov/43. But that site is captured -- at least, the way it stood at 11:59 a.m. on January 20th -- in the the National Archives at georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov.

• Smithsonian 2.0: With the help of folks like Chris Anderson, Clay Shirky, and Flickr's George Oates, the Smithsonian is dragging itself into the Internet age, report the Washington Post's Joel Garreau.

In Case You Missed It...

Tom Watson says that Obama's victory in the battle over the BlackBerry means that this American president is in touch, accessible, and quite possibly reading our blogs.

David Weinberger suggests we could be on the cusp of an "intimate democracy," one in which "we know one another better, we trust one another more, and we care about one another more deeply."

Matt Burton highlights Casey Coleman, the CIO at GSA, as a another powerful voice for the potential of social software in the federal government.

Chuck DeFeo asks whether MoveOn is making clever use of Facebook Connect without the rest of us noticing.

And Mike Turk asks if the new White House staffs use of Gmail in the early days of the administration might be worthy of a public challenge.

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