Daily Digest: McCain Forwards, Dean in Demand, and Oversight Gets Lost in the Sausage

• McCain Taps List to Oppose Stimulus -- Pass it Along!: Not to be cowed by Organizing for America's 13-million-member or so mailing list, John McCain stepped into the fray yesterday with an email to his list on the stimulus package before Congress. States the email, "I cannot and do not support the package on the table from the Democrats and the Obama Administration." The like-minded are directed to a petition hosted by McCain's Country First PAC. The Nation's Ari Melber doesn't think McCain's line in the sand will do much good. For one thing, notes Melber, McCain's email list was reportedly bought, not organically grown -- making it potentially less responsive to the former candidate's advances. But even Melber can't explain why the email is marked "Fwd" when it doesn't appear to be any such thing. Perhaps it's like labeling something "VIRAL" in the hopes that it will convince people to send it to their entire address book?

• Putting Daschle Through the Wayback Machine: We may never know what role, if any, the Tom Daschle YouTube video that burned up the Intertubes yesterday had in his withdrawal as HHS nominee. But woowee, it couldn't have helped. (Via Shaun Dakin) The 30-second campaign spot, produced back in the days when former-Senator Daschle was still Congressman Daschle, makes much of the fact that this humble native of Aberdeen, South Dakota proudly drives his old Pontiac rust bucket alongside "Washington's BMWs and limos." (Daschle, of course, withdrew over tax troubles involving his use of a limo car service and driver.) "Isn't it too bad," intones the voiceover, "the rest of Washington doesn't understand that a penny saved is a penny earned?" Ouch. The YouTube's memory is a long and vengeful one.

• Demanding a Dean at the Table: With Daschle out of the running, there's a been a renewed push in what is perhaps best called the progressive blogosphere to install former DNC chair Howard Dean at the helm of Health and Human Services. There's a sense that Dean, something of a native son of the netroots, hasn't been given his due by the Obama Administration. With the opening at HHS, some want Obama to reward Dean (and, by somewhat contrived extension, liberal online activists) with real power in the new regime. An "Appoint Howard Dean to HHS!" Facebook group has blossomed from 1,300 to 2,100 members overnight. And MyDD's Jerome Armstrong points at the excitement around Dean on his blog and asks, "Is anyone listening? Do the netroots get a seat at Obama's table?"

• Recovery Dot Gone?: Recovery.gov, the much-anticipated oversight site tracking the payouts from the $900 billion stimulus package currently before Congress, has been dropped from the Senate version of the bill, reports the Sunlight Foundation's John Wonderlich.* (Think GSA can get a refund?) To be sure, transparency provisions remain, but language specifying that particular domain name is missing -- perhaps a victim of government-y web practice of domain names not appearing to be too sloganish. Is it time to start worrying? Not quite yet, counsels Wonderlich. The Senate, he writes, might be cooking up its own, and even better, web-powered oversight plans. In the interest of distributing eggs to multiple baskets, check out Ars Technica's Julian Sanchez's round-up of third-party stimulus oversight sites.

• Congressional Twitiquette: Politico's Andie Coller explores the etiquette of tweeting on your day job, when your day job involves serving as an elected representative in the United States Congress. At least one politeness expert isn't pleased: "[I]t's like the girls who wore the flip-flops to the White House."

In Case You Missed It...

Sarah Granger visited the White House briefing room yesterday and came away with some insight on the future of tech in the Obama Administration. Despite first-fortnight hiccups, reports Sarah, "nothing has changed in the plans of the administration since the development of the technology agenda." Sarah also shares what she learned from a recent viewing of a Linkfluence map of the "Feminist web."

Allison Fine takes a look at a state program that makes it easy for Alaskans to divert a portion of their Permanent Fund Dividend check, a.k.a. their share of state oil revenues, to local non-profits. Asks Allison, why not a "Tax Choice Program" that would let us direct some slice of our tax dollars to the programs of our choosing?

And Nancy Scola writes that by devoting time and attention to launching the new GOP.gov API, Hill Republicans are making an innovative go at "government everywhere."

*Note: Our Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry are senior advisors to the Sunlight Foundation.

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