The Web on the Candidates

• He got it wrong: Yesterday morning, Ben Smith of the Politico reported that John Edwards was suspending his campaign due to his wife Elizabeth's recurrence of cancer. As we know now, Edwards is staying in. Smith's source got it wrong, and Smith wrote a good piece describing how he got the story and the differences between reporting for a newspaper and for a blog. "Though I’ve spent the last several years at major newspapers – the New York Observer and the New York Daily News most recently – I’ve done much of my reporting on blogs, and have developed an instinct to let my readers know whatever I know, as soon as I know it... But the scale of this story was simply too big to report that way, to share information with high but imperfect confidence – and without making that level of confidence crystal clear. I should have waited for a second source, or hedged the item much more fully. Or simply waited for the news conference like everybody else." Hat tip to Smith for owning up to his error so quickly and openly. Very bloggy of him.
• Eric Kleefeld at TPMCafe writes that a new Zogby Interactive poll finds that the "Vote Different" anti-Hillary video had no effect on two-thirds of of likely Democratic voters, and "the remaining one third were three times as likely to prefer Clinton after seeing it."
• Howard Kurtz and Jose Antonio Vargas at the Washington Post wonder if the anti-Clinton 1984 video is helping usher in "A Brave New World of Political Skulduggery." The revelation that Phil de Vellis of Blue State Digital was the video's creator "raises questions about whether the more old-fashioned art of political chicanery was at play," they write. Meanwhile, the video's effect on Obama and Clinton's campaigns is still playing out. Jonah Seiger of Connections Media thinks Obama is taking a hit. "If I were a traditional media strategist, an old-school guy, I'd think, 'See, you can't trust these crazy kids. If one of my employees did this, I'd be outraged. It would reflect badly on my company. It can't help but reflect badly on my client. . . . There's no question that this causes embarrassment to Obama."
• The Bivings Report's Tom McCormick takes a look at the the new Rudy site and, like techPresident's Mike Turk, finds it seriously lacking. His browser crashed multiple times while viewing the site, and like Turk he received errors when trying to click through to different features. McCormack's conclusion: "Low marks for the Rudy2008 design at this point." The Bivings Report always gives solid critique of websites; check out the post for more. Perhaps Giuliani internet director Patrick Ruffini needs to spend less time on his personal blog?
• This Saturday the Center for American Progress Action Fund and the Center for American Progress Action Fund and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) are co-sponsoring a live forum on health care with most of the Democratic presidential field, including Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson. There will be a live video webcast, and participants will be able to ask questions and live blog the forum at ThinkProgress.

The Candidates on the Web

• Yesterday we reported that Hillary Clinton, Dennis Kucinich (via his wife), Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson wrote notes about Elizabeth Edwards on their sites. Later, Joe Biden posted a note on his site: "I am truly sorry to learn that Elizabeth Edwards has had a recurrence of her cancer. However, I am pleased to hear that Elizabeth and John are optimistic and moving forward. Elizabeth, John and their children are in our thoughts and prayers."

In Case You Missed It...
The New Influencers
Over the past two weeks, ParkRidge47 has effectively and persuasively illustrated the role voter-generated content will play in race to 2008. With over 2.3M views at time of writing, his 1984 culture-jack has become the canonical example of a voter-generated content coup. And while ParkRidge47 deserves a tremendous amount of credit for his work, Fred Stutzman reminds us that it's important to remember that his is just one piece in an evolving story - why, the laughable Anti-Obama version of the ad has over 380k views despite its one-star rating.

Signing Off So Soon
TechPresident contributor Mindy Finn has joined the Romney campaign as Director of eStrategy and is signing off as a regular contributor to TP.

Wishing Elizabeth Edwards the Best
Elizabeth Edwards' announcement that her breast cancer has returned in a potentially more dangerous form is sad news, and we salute her and John's courage in declaring that they will fight on. Our best wishes to them both.