Daily Digest: Personal Democracy, Obama-Style

The Web on the Candidates

• Oh, Internets: techPresident's Micah Sifry announces that, in light of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's dissolution of Parliament and the calling of new elections, the site has added new charts to track how the Canadian candidates are doing online. Another great way to keep up with the exciting political action in our neighbor to the north: NetPrimeMinister.ca, a project of the University of British Columbia's School of Journalism that tracks "how the candidates vying to be Canada’s next prime minister are being talked about in social media from blogs to Twitter, YouTube and Flickr." #

• "Community Organizing" Dig Fuels Faithful Fundraising: Faithful America, an online project of the non-partisan 501c3 organization Faith in Public Life, sent out a faith-based email action alert Friday in response to Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin's continued criticisms of community organizing: "Many politicians simply don't understand what community organizers do. So here's a short lesson: They work in church basements, synagogues and mosques to empower their communities and make life better for millions of working people across the country." Calling "the ignorance on display" in Palin's comments and simliar comments from Rudy Giuliani "a teachable moment," Faithful in America reports to techPresident that in four days the online campaign has raised enough money to pay for pro-organizing ads in the the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- hometown papers of the two cities where Palin is on record poking fun at community organizing. #

• Anatomy of an Edit: Blog P.I.'s William Beutler sleuths out how changes to Sarah Palin's Wikipedia page might be inspired by someone associated with Citizendium, a Wikipedia competitor, making use of a MyBarackObama.com mailing list. #

The Candidates on the Web

• Taking It to the Streets: The Obama campaign tracks the inspiration for its noteworthy Neighbor-to-Neighbor outreach tool to what Barack Obama learned as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side in the 1980s, but the personal over-the-back-fence approach was one that reaped dividends for the Bush-Cheney campaigns of both '00 and '04. The campaign very quietly rolled out Neighbor-to-Neighbor last week, but it might prove to be an under-the-radar killer app as we roll towards election day. Campaigns have dabbled before in putting walk lists and contact response forms online before, but in scale and ambition N2N is singular. It remains to be seen, though, if my neighbor Sally isn't a bit freaked out that I found out on the Internets that she's female, 47, and still on the fence about who to vote for. (Thanks Shaun Dakin) #

• On the Video Front: Is Obama's video strategy in need of a revamp? That's the question that Silicon Alley Insider's Michael Learmonth is asking. Team Obama has thus far relied upon documentary-style footage to gain YouTube views, but Learmouth finds that McCain got comparable views to Obama last week while posting only about a sixth of the clips -- many of which are simply web version of TV ads. #

• McCain Ramps Up Online Ads: New numbers show that while the Obama campaign cut back on online ad spending in August -- with a 48% decrease in image ads and an 18% drop in link ads -- the McCain campaign exploded its online ad spending this past month. Image ads for McCain shot up 254% over the July numbers and link ads increased by 43%. While those stats are meaningful internally, the overall gap between the campaigns remains as before. Even with the cuts, Obama dropped about three times as much as McCain on online adverts in August. One place team McCain is newly (and cleverly) spending cash? On a Google keyword search ad for "Joe Biden," which, as you can imagine, points to a none too favorable page on JohnMcCain.com on the Delaware senator. #

TechCongress and Beyond

• And the Others: Tracking Congress's Key Races: What? There are hundreds of down-ticket races happening this cycle that are critical to the future of the nation? You don't say... The just-launched House Race Tracker tracks some important lower-chamber contests, with an easy-to-read interface that provides a one-stop shop for the the latest polling, cash on hand, and even TV ads airing in the race. #

• A Clear-Eyed Look at Earmarks: With earmarks and Palin's position on the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere" getting nearly as much political attention these days as mooseburgers and aerial wolf hunting, you might want to go over and bookmark the Sunlight Foundation's earmarks visualizer. The tools allows the tracking of targeted spending by state and by agency, and it's fascinating see the range of federal funding that goes to each state -- ranging from $22.80 per capita in North Carolina to $1,013 per Alaskan per year. (Disclosure: PdF's Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry serve as senior strategic advisors to the Sunlight Foundation.) #

• Gaming the Vote: We've already covered the groundbreaking partnership between Xbox and Rock the Vote that allows the 12 million members of the Xbox LIVE network to easily register to vote in between sessions of "Halo," but it's worth checking out CNN's quickie summary piece. We still think gamers are an untapped political resource in the U.S., and a constituency with a lot of opinion and passion. Not too get too dorky with it, but you just have to check out the avalanche of animus that greeted the "digital rights management" restrictions on the release of the hotly-anticipated Spore this weekend to know that gamers can get passionate and political about issues they care about. (Thanks Brett Schenker) #

In Case You Missed It...

Nancy Scola places Wootdall, a play on the playful online commerce site Woot from the campaign of Tom Udall for Senate, in the growing list of attempts to tap geek culture for support and cash.