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Daily Digest: 5/31/07

BY Joshua Levy | Thursday, May 31 2007

The Web on the Candidates

  • John Edwards stopped by the YouTube studio yesterday to record an interview with politics editor Steve Grove. It started as a gregarious interview, with Grove jokingly asking if Edwards spent the Memorial Day weekend on a beach in South Carolina (Edwards answered that he spent the weekend attending 13 town hall meetings), but it soon turned thoughtful. Edwards answered a few user-submitted questions ("What's your biggest fault?") and became especially reflective when discussing his wife Elizabeth's cancer. Grove ended with a "shotgun" round of questions in which he asked Edwards to answer if he though certain things should be rights or priveleges for Americans. When asked about handgun ownership and citizenship for workers who have lived in the U.S. for one year, Edwards took a moment before responding "privilege," and the interview came to an end soon after. Despite our insistence on unscripted, off-the-cuff video, this interview was well done and showed a different side of Edwards than we are used to seeing.

The Candidates on the Web

  • Fred Thompson is now, sort-of, kinda, officially running for President, I think. He plans to formally announce in early July, but he's pretty much said he's running. The press continues to discuss how he will run and "unconventional" campaign, which means not only will he wear flannel shirts and drive a red pick-up truck, but he will also take advantage of online media. "He's planning a campaign that will use blogs, video posts and other Internet innovations to reach voters repelled by politics-as-usual in both parties," writes Susan Page in USA Today. While some critics charge that it's out of laziness that he's turning to the web rather than pounding the pavement, he told Page that a candidate could use the web "to cut through the clutter and go right to the people." Thompson has already been blogging on ABC (I suppose that will have to stop) and posted a humorous and well-watched response to Michael Moore on YouTube, so he does seem to instinctively understand how to use the web to "cut through the clutter."
  • John McCain was interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher of the Wall Street Journal for the D:All Things Digital conference, where, among other things, they asked him about Net Neutrality, government regulation of the telecom industry, and copyright protection. McCain believes there should be as little regulation of the broadband as possible. "When you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment," he said (I wonder if Ted Stevens helped him with that). He does believe we should reform our copyright laws since some in Congress don't fully understand the issues. (thanks Election Geek!)

In Case You Missed It...

David All has 82,000 reasons why Web 2.0 matters at every level of politics.

Micah Sifry asks how much lower-level political candidates should adopt Web 2.0 technologies.

John Edwards has announced his support for auctioning off a new chunk of the wireless spectrum to companies working in underserved and rural areas.

Mike Turk wants to know "Who is John Durham?" He's not quite who he says he is.

News Briefs

RSS Feed yesterday >

This Isn't What Political Air Time Usually Means

MoveOn.org is asking supporters for $150,000 in donations to fly a plane above high-dollar fundraisers for Mitt Romney with "a message that reminds voters how he represents his corporate and 1% donors." MoveOn previously hired a plane to fly over Romney's Liberty University graduation speech with the message "GOP = HIGHER SCHOOL DEBT." GO

There's a New $200 Million Fund for Super-High-Speed Broadband Projects

An initiative to build and test gigabit-speed broadband networks is set to fund up to six next-generation Internet access projects across the country, fueled by a new $200 million broadband development funding program, Gigabit Squared and Gig.U announced this morning. GO

New Rice University Paper Chronicles Impact of the Internet On U.S. Foreign Policy

We all know that the Internet has transformed the way that the United States conducts diplomacy, and the way that it views national security, but where should we look to find evidence of this? This is the wide-ranging subject matter of a new paper published on Tuesday by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. The paper provides a round-up of some of the major turns of events between 2005 and 2011 in the realms of Internet governance, the development of online public diplomacy at the State Department, the evolution of the Internet-fueled Arab Spring, and the establishment of the shadowy U.S. Cyber Command in Fort Meade, Maryland, among other things. GO

Messin' with Lamar Smith, Revisited

Remember that grassroots fundraising campaign to put a "Don't Mess with the Internet" billboard in the home district of Rep. Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas and sponsor of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act? All of the money required came in, and Fight for the Future, the advocacy group opposing more stringent copyright protections online, writes that the billboard went up. GO

Republican National Convention Organizers Sever Ties With Becki Donatelli's Campaign Solutions

After eight years producing online content for the Republican National Convention, GOP web consultant Becki Donatelli's Campaign Solutions is off of the project. "Campaign Solutions was retained to help develop our convention website and digital strategy, but they are no longer involved in convention planning," James Davis, the convention's communications director, told techPresident Tuesday. It's unclear what precipitated the of the relationship between the convention organizers and Campaign Solutions, which has been producing the online component of the event since 2004. But Donatelli's name surfaced in a controversial anti-Obama ad pitch sent to a Super PAC backed by TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, which appeared in its entirety in the Times last week. Ricketts has since disavowed the proposal and Donatelli has denied any involvement. GO

PD+ This Thurs 1pm: Thriving Online With Howard Rheingold

I'm really looking forward to talking with author Howard Rheingold this Thursday on the next PD+ teleconference. His new book, Net Smart, is a concise and thoughtful guide to understanding and making the most of the hyper-networked, always-on, firehose of information and distraction that is the contemporary experience of anyone who uses ... GO

City of Joplin, Mo. Launches New Online Center Ahead of Tornado's Anniversary

The city of Joplin, Missouri launched its new web site over the week-end ahead of the May 22 anniversary of the massive tornado that devastated the city and killed 161 people. The new site enables Joplin citizens to sign up for emergency alerts via text message, e-mail and RSS. In addition to those alerts, individuals can also sign up for ... GO

In Virginia, City Council Debates to Include Questions Posed Online

The Alexandria Democratic Party in Alexandria, Virginia has partnered with online civic engagement platform ACTion Alexandria to include questions solicited in an online forum in the final Democratic primary debate for a City Council election there on June 4, ahead of the June 12 election, according to a statement released by the group. ACTion Alexandria hopes to work with both parties during the general election.

Participants in the project can add questions to the forum, or vote on questions that have already been posed, although each user is only given three votes to distribute. Users are also encouraged to use their real names. Questions submitted so far hit on topics ranging from broadband access to a ban on food trucks in the city.

GO

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