The Web on the Candidates

• Wow, after a crazy weekend of primary and caucus activity, with more posts on our site than you can shake a stick at, the web is taking a giant breath. Things are slow. And that’s ok once in a while.

• With the rush of fundraising going on in the Democratic party these days, it’s odd that a contributor would be receiving money from the campaign. But Zephyr Teachout - who posts on this site with pleasing regularity — writes on Off The Bus that, since she’s a registered lobbyist, the Barack Obama campaign returned her check. She understands, and the no-federal-lobbyists policy actually makes her want to campaign more for Obama. “How can I not want to make more phone calls, knowing that Alexa [Chappell, the Obama staffer who signed the letter with her returned check] is deep in the basement, trying to clean out the influence of money one check at a time?”

• Despite his frontrunner status, there’s been scant voter-generated content created in support of John McCain. So YouTubers Election O8, led by funny guy Andy Cobb, have imagined what a “Yes We Can”-style video might look like if it was made for McCain. Needless to say, their version — called “john.he.is” — doesn’t reach the same emotional heights. Instead, we watch as the gathered supporters gradually become frustrated with their candidate. Maybe leading a chant of “Bomb Bomb Iran” just doesn’t inspire like “Yes We Can.” Meanwhile, their video is an example of voter-generated content about voter-generated content. Meta. Neat.

• Speaking of “Yes We Can,” it was only a matter of time before the phrase was appropriated by other cultural memes. So what do you get when you combine the Obama chant with “I Can Has Cheezburger?” That’s right, “Yes We Can Has (Cheezburgers).” It’s a site in which pro-Obama kitties proclaim that there is “Not Orange Amirica and White Amirica” but “There Has Unitid State in America.” But like the pictures of my cats that I flaunt shamelessly — look, they’re so cute! — if you don’t like cats, or Obama, you may not be amused.

• Obama may still be the hockey-stick candidate, but some of our charts are showing an uptick for Hillary Clinton too, accompanying her impressive fundraising numbers. Obama is continuing to reach new heights in YouTube viewership, but Hillary gained more views than usual over the weekend, and she saw a jolt of new Facebook supporters too. But our Hitwise charts — which show the amount of traffic the campaigns’ sites are receiving relative to their opponents — shows Hillary’s numbers going down, and Obama’s ticking upward.

The Candidates on the Web

• Every day, more and more activists and campaigns join us in our search to the great onffline riddle of our time: how can online enthusiasm lead to offline action? And what is the sound of one hand clapping? The latest advance is made by Michael Kolowich of DigiNovations, the folks behind Mitt Romney’s Mitt TV video channel. With the Romney campaign is over, Kolowich offers ten observations about the successes and challenges of his video arm. Among them: YouTube is weak at inspiring voters to act and can be used for and against a candidate; it’s important for a candidate to find ways to control his or her message; make the software work; and reach out to bloggers. He’s writing from the perspective of helping Mitt win, and doesn’t seem particularly interested in actually involving voters in a campaign, so in my mind he overemphasizes the need to control the message. But, hey, Mitt knew best, right?

In Case You Missed It…

The RNC is pushing a Valentine centered campaign this week with a set of eCards you can mail to your friends, writes Mike Turk. Ah, how cute. But they’re really just avenues for attack, with such witty content as Hillary saying, “If I could rearrange the alphabet, I’d put T and AX together.” Ah, how cute.

You know when something is spreading online when your friends ask you about it spontaneously. That’s how Micah Sifry heard about feminist Robin Morgan’s online rallying cry for Hillary Clinton, “Goodbye To All That (#2),” which has been circulating widely since she posted it on the Women’s Media Center website on February 2nd.

In the past few days, the Clinton campaign has started advertising for donations on Washington Post online properties, notes Colin Delany. Who says the candidates aren’t advertising online?

Dan Manatt points to New York Times media critic Frank Rich’s review of Hillary Clinton’s townhall event, which has been critiqued and applauded on our site.

Group News Blog’s Jesse Wendel didn’t caucus in Washington State on Saturday. Of course, it’s my own damn fault for not knowing where my caucus meets. But he also blames the campaigns which, he writes, failed the mobile wireless test. s

Micah Sifry has been diligently covering the online fundraising war between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It’s turned into a daily battle of the press releases, and it’s hard to say for sure what the numbers truly mean, though they’re in line with every other measure of public interest in the campaigns.

Ari Melber — who’s been spending most of his time praising Barack Obama’s web strategy — defends Hillary Clinton from critics of her Virtual Hall (inlcuding our own Zephyr Teachout). While it wasn’t the most interactive event ever, on the scale of managed presidential campaign events, it was moderately participatory: more than a one-way stump speech, less than an open coffee klatch in Iowa.

It’s a web politics battle: Disintermediation v. Interactivity…