Daily Digest: On Tweets and Veeps and Congresspeeps

The Web on the Candidates

• Pushing Clark: As the clock ticks on VP nominations, two members of the netroots have launched a campaign to push Wes Clark for the Dem slot, focusing on his long-standing objection to the Iraq war and the face of America an Obama-Clark administration would present to the world. Behind the ObamaClark.com push are Open Left's Matt Stoller, a long-time Clark fan, and Aaron Ament, who worked for Clark in '04 and has lead two high-profile online movements before -- StopJohnBolton.com and ProtectOurCourt.org, the latter an anti-John Roberts site. Hey, one outta two ain't bad. Clark, you'll remember, earned some serious netroots cred by first questioning John McCain's war record as a qualification for the presidency and then refusing to back down from the statements. (FWIW, the betting site Intrade has Clark at 11th in the Democratic veep stakes.) #

• McCain Unplugged: It's seeming these days like the sun never sets on "McCain is computer illiterate" stories, and today the New York Times' Mark Leibovich has his take; perhaps just as interesting as the article are the comments that are flowing in from around the world, most of which seem to chide McCain for not being more tech savvy. Politico's Ben Smith argues that McCain's tech deficit is causing him troubles, and quotes tech consultants saying that the Republican candidate should consider standing in line for an iPhone or starting up his own Twitter account. But, to play the contrarian, it's not at all clear who, beyond new media consultants, would be won over by an all-Mac'd-up McCain. As is often noted, Howard Dean wasn't exactly bidding for tchotchkes on eBay and blogging into the wee hours of the night before his '04 run. But his campaign got the power of tech, and that's what defined his run then and now. #

• Quick Hits: The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel, Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher, Gore Vidal and others have signed on to an open letter to Barack Obama pushing for him to embrace his role as the head of a movement...how will Twitter shape campaign coverage?...are bloggers pundits or operatives, and does how the RNCC and DNCC are treating them point to how they fit on the right and left?...the first report from OffTheBus's coverage of Obama's listening tour finds that volunteers expect their voices to be heard as the DNC crafts its platform...are we going back to old-school talking-head debates?...Digg takes down Speaker.House.gov...NPR rounds up reactions on race and politics, and if you haven't checked out their GetMyVote project, do so..."Independent Government Observers" gather in Chicago...and the real reason BlogHer got so little press coverage: lack of focus. #
  

The Candidates on the Web

• All Views are Good Views?: With, 1.5 million views, McCain's "Celeb" video is a YouTube hit. But, Ben Smith reports, a chunk of those visits are coming in via a Der Spiegel headline that suggests the ad is making fun of Obama's German fans. #

TechCongress and Beyond

• Forget Bill Numbers; Follow the Hashtag: It's probably safe to say that Capitol Hill has never been as on the cutting edge of tech as it has been this summer. On Friday afternoon, some Republican members refused to abide by the House's adjournment and decide to remain on the floor, in protest of the fact that the body hadn't passed legislation on domestic offshore oil drilling. The in-chamber cameras and lights were powered down, but no matter -- the Republicans began beaming the whole thing to the world via the social media tools Twitter and Qik. The hashtag of #dontgo soon sprung from the ether, and dontgo.us was quickly set up to track the action. Fascinating stuff. The New York Times' Brian Stelter has a straightforward account and Washingtonian's Garrett Graff reports from the scene. But there's a risk we run in focusing so much on tools. We can get caught up in the gee-whizness of our electeds Twittering and Qikking from the halls of power, and forget for a minute that this is a fraught political fight over oil, led by a congressman who represents oil-rich Houston. On that point, Sunlight's Paul Blumenthal ties oil industry contributions to the members of Congress staging the drilling protest. But one thing's clear: Republicans are killing at the Twitter game. The right is having a blast with #dontgo -- witness, for example, TechRepublican's David All riffing off a Rep. Pete Hoekstra tweet directive to ring up the Speaker's office. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi's Twitter feed is dead quiet. #