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Daily Digest: Obama's VP "Sausage Making" to Stay Offline and Closed

BY Nancy Scola | Friday, June 6 2008

The Web on the Candidates

  • Given that using technology to shine light into government has been one of the cornerstones of Barack Obama’s campaign, David Weinberger's proposal for the Democratic nominee to let us "see the vice-sausage being made" makes some kinda sense. (After all, picking a running mate has been called the first governing decision. And yes, I just linked to David Brooks. Sometimes he says smart things.) But don't hold your breath; Obama had this to say yesterday: "The next time you hear from me about the vice-presidential selection process will be when I have selected a vice president."

  • Honeymoon's over, kids. After about eleven minutes of bipartisan good-wishes-all-around, the Republican National Committee has launched the "one-stop site" for their take on their opponent. Meet MeetBarackObama.com. The site makes clear the major bullet points on which they'll go after the Democratic candidate: resume, political experience both foreign and domestic, and ties to certain benefactors and allies. While the Democratic National Committee offers up a rather more anemic subsection on their site about John MccCain...

  • ...taking up some slack is the Florida Democratic Party. HurricaneMcCain.com is a holder for a short video criticizing McCain's opposition to a national disaster fund that just about every politico in Florida supports -- including oft-mentioned VP pick Gov. Charlie Crist. The video highlights McCain’s appearance before DC's Conservative Political Action Conference in which he told of how he said "no" to the fund even while campaigning in the Sunshine State. One wonders if he considered that that clip might find its way back to the critical general election state via the tubes.

  • Wired's Sarah Lai Stirland profiles a site said to be a hub for jaded Clinton supporters leading a charge of disenchanted Democrats against Obama, but it looks to me like the work of one lone, um, colorful personality.

The Candidates on the Web

  • McCain campaign chief Rick Davis announces a video competition around the upcoming Republican National Convention. To enter, simply upload a video to YouTube by June 26 highlighting "an American neighbor," someone who epitomizes selflessness in service. The winners will be on their way to Minneapolis, where, one might extrapolate, selflessness in service just might be a theme. (Thx Carlo)

  • The digital medium is the political message, and vice versa. In Time's useful take on his primary victory, Obama describes “how powerfully our message merged with the social networking and the power of the Internet” as "probably one of the biggest surprises of the campaign." (Also to look for in the piece is this classic Joe Trippi analogy: the Dean campaign is to the Obama campaign as the Wright brothers were to the Apollo Project.)

  • The Huffington Post is making a big deal about how King Abdullah II Ibn Al Hussein of Jordon is "blogging" on the site, but his posts so far have all been reprinted speeches. A bit more promising is this contribution on the 2016 Olympics by Dorrit Moussaieff. What, you don’t follow Nordic politics? Sheesh. Moussaieff is Iceland’s first lady.

In Case You Missed It...

Micah Sifry highlights some of the week’s compelling political videos, including one showing a playful "fist bump of hope" between Barack and Michelle Obama. Micah cautions against appending "of hope" to everything the Dem nominee does between now and November, but I suspect we may have found the new "-gate."

News Briefs

RSS Feed friday >

Google to Charlie Rangel: You Are Dead to Me.

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) might be facing particularly challenging reelection odds this year, at least acording to Google: based on its new Knowledge Graph interface, the search engine says that the very-much-alive Congressman died on November 20, 2004, as Colin Campbell first reported for Politicker via Azi Paybarah and Anthony Adragna. GO

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Roemer to Americans Elect: Thanks Anyway

Americans Elect announced recently that it would suspend its online candidate selection process, leaving organizations in several states with an open slot on the ballot. Naturally, potential candidate Buddy Roemer is not enthused. "I am taking the next few days to review with supporters how best to proceed from here," he says. GO

Chris Anderson Says That Nixed TED Talk Was Rated "Mediocre," Links To It Anyway

TED's Chris Anderson responds to criticism of how his idea-spreading operation handled a talk about inequality — and posts video of the talk online. GO

Was the "Ricketts"/Fred Davis Obama-Wright Ad Pitch a Good Deal?

As if the content of the now-discarded plan for a new Super PAC-funded attack campaign against President Barack Obama wasn't controversial enough to grab attention — it would revive attempts to link President Obama to the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright just before the beginning of the Democratic National Convention this summer — the now-discarded plan featured a two-page pitch for a pricey social media component meant to boost its exposure. GO

Facebook's Growing Political Importance, Visualized

To commemorate Facebook's impending IPO, the Sunlight Foundation's* reporting group has a new story chronicling Facebook's increasing political spending. Accompanying the story, though, is an instance of their Capitol Words tool that shows Facebook's increasing relevance in Congress as well. GO

TED: Some Seattle Billionaires Have 'Ideas Worth Spreading'; Some Don't

A year ago, Microsoft mega-billionaire Bill Gates gave a talk at TED about state budgets and education funding, entitled "How state budgets are breaking US schools." It was an attack on state budgeting practices. All but one of the fifty states are supposed to balance their budget, but Gates argued that most states used gimmicks "that ... GO

Summer Olympics to Stream Live From the UK — For Some

The BBC announced its plans yesterday to broadcast its live Olympics coverage of London's Summer games to PCs, mobile-devices and Internet-connected televisions, Reuters reported.

With a free Olympics application for Apple and Android phones, the BBC says it will be offering up to 24 live streams and video highlights clips, and plans for over 2,500 hours of live programming ... that is only available to viewers in the UK. NBC also plans to stream online, but the majority of free viewing of the Olympics will only be available to existing cable TV subscribers.

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CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront" Will Have Some Tech-Politics Commentators

This should be interesting: CNN nightly news program Erin Burnett OutFront is out with its list of political commentators for the general election. Some of the names are familiar in Internet-politics-land. The gang includes Upworthy's Maegan Carberry, who was previously director of communications at Rock The Vote; Sasha Issenberg, who ventures into our corner of the political world frequently while documenting the new science of political campaigns for Slate; and Ben Smith, veteran political blogger turned BuzzFeed's top politics editor.

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