Now that the FCC has announced it will be auctioning off the 700 megahertz part of the wireless spectrum -- it will go unused once broadcast TV stations make a complete switch to digital in 2009 -- its use has become a political and commercial hot button. Internet activists have gone on the offensive to try to convince the FCC of the public importance of the newly-freed spectrum, and to be fair when assigning it, and today they've made a key ally in John Edwards.

The Web on the Candidates

John Edwards advisor Joe Trippi is in the U.K., telling British politicians that "Internet activism is spelling the end for the age of spin." In an interview with the Guardian, Trippi talked about the always-on nature of online campaigning. "Before TV, what mattered was how your voice sounded. Then with TV it matters what your candidate looks like ... We are now moving to a medium where authenticity is king, from what things look like to what's real ... You have to be 'on' 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Trippi said. He describes the new world of politics in the "peer-to-peer social network world," in which the opinion of peers is worth more than a top-down campaign message. While no candidates in the U.S. - including Edwards -- are completely running this kind of campaign, David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party in the U.K., continues his engaged web presence with multiple videos a week and an active community blog.

The FEC has produced a very cool map showing most campaign contributions to presidential candidates (PAC money and contributions under $200 aren't represented). A bunch of bubbles are overlaid over a map of the U.S., and when you click on the name of a candidate (listed to the left) you'll see the areas that have donated to them; click on the bubbles and you'll get a close-up view of that region; click on them again and you'll see a list of individual donors and the amount they contributed. (hat tip: Hotline)

John Edwards has just issued a strong statement in support of net neutrality today, writing a letter to the FCC stating that the issue "goes to the heart and soul of democracy."

Perhaps the most influential technology-focused blog, TechCrunch, will host a series of podcasts with Presidential candidates. First up on the plate, Mitt Romney.

Let's geek out after the jump...

I'm at the 18th annual Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference, being held at Yale this week, and this morning's opening session on "Presidential Technology Policy: Priorities for the Next Executive" featured representatives from the Obama and McCain campaigns. The Obama camp sent the co-director of MIT's decentralized information group. The McCain camp sent the former chief patent lawyer for Time Warner. The two seemed almost hand-picked as embodiments of the two very different ways a President Obama and a President McCain would handled tech policy.

I'm here at PdF '08 at a press conference marking the launch of InternetforEveryone.com, a coalition pushing for universal high-speed Internet, centered around four core tenets: access, choice, openness, and innovation. The unveiling of the broadband effort was a unique opportunity to witness some pretty, ehem, prolific talkers from the worlds of academia, advocacy, and business strictly held to just one or two minutes, and so I've tried to capture their mico-arguments in favor of universal broadband here.

Team McCain pwns the Obama campaign by tracking screen captures that show changes to the Democratic candidate's website subsection on Iraq; with an innovative and occassionally funny digital townhall, Rep. John Culberson gets one step closer to be a "real time representative;" JibJib has a new video; we highlight the latest development in the ongoing conservative battle over broadband; and much, much more.

Obama reaches 2 million donors, BarelyPolitical barely keeps my attention, McCain's tech policy review, techPresident is honored with a nomination, Obama and McCain's YouTube channels

Now's a good time to ask, what the heck happened with the defeat of the bailout bill on Capitol Hill on Monday?; Debate? What debate? Oh, there's a debate tonight. The Internet has bubbled up some ways to play along with Palin vs. Biden; Wow. The Obama campaign has released a gorgeous new iPhone app; Congress has okayed a bill that requires the government to regularly and accurately assess who in the U.S. has broadband access and who doesn't. If we may humbly advance an opinion: excellent!; and a good deal more. Honest.

Is this a peek into how the how the Obama Administration plans to handle the Federal Communications Commission when it comes to town in January? The Obama-Biden transition team has just named the staunchly pro-Internet Susan Crawford its co-lead in the review of the powerful FCC. Crawford, a leading expert on communications policy, is the founder of OneWebDay, called "an environmental movement for the Internet ecosystem." She was, until recently, also a member of the board of directors of ICANN, the organization charged with overseeing some of the Internet's operations.*

* Updated to reflect the face that Crawford ended her term on the ICANN board last week.