The Web on the Candidates

• Jose Antonio Vargas, who works the online campaign beat at the Washington Post, will be taking a weekly look at who's ahead on the web on the Post's campaign blog, The Trail.  It might be hard, however, to discover new trends, since Barack Obama and Ron Paul have been steadily leading the Democratic and Republican candidates online and Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani have been at the top of offline polls.  His look at the disconnect between online and offline enthusiasm, however, could yield interesting results.
• Until he was arrested for and plead guilty to lewd conduct in a men's bathroom, Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho was campaign co-liason for Mitt Romney.  Once the arrest was made public, Craig "stepped down" from the campaign, and as the Politico's Jonathan Martin notes, a video of his endorsement was made private on Romney's YouTube channel.  However,  MyDD's Todd Beeton found it hosted on LiveLeak.  That's the thing with the Internets -- you can make copies of things!  They don't always disappear! It's magic.
• Wonkosphere is a new site that tracks the online buzz surrounding the candidates, charts it (you know we like charts), and links to "important" posts.  The bar graph on its home page shows the "Current Top 12 Buzz Share." According to the chart, Hillary Clinton has 25% of the buzz, followed by Barack Obama, with about 18%.  Least buzz: John McCain.
• Close to 1500 videos have already been submitted to YouTube for November's Republican CNN/YouTube debate.  As expected, the majority are thought provoking and heavy on the issues.  PrezVid's Peter Hauck links to a few that caught his eye.  My favorite: one man asks Mitt Romney (will he be there?), "if it's okay for your sons to be able to decide not to participate in the military, why is it not okay for gay and lesbian Americans to decide to serve in the military? 

In Case You Missed It...

A new site called PolitiFact is rigorously fact-checking the candidates and rating their statements on a Truth-O-Meter. It's yielding fascinating results and could be an essential resource in 2008, but what about the participatory web and the wisdom of the crowd?