TPMCafe's Election Central has video highlights from six possible Democratic presidential hopefuls from the Democratic National Committee's Winter Meeting in Washington, D.C. Among the official, exploring, or rumored candidates: Senators Christopher Dodd (CT), Hillary Clinton (NY), Barack Obama (IL), John Edwards (NC), Congressman Dennis Kucinich (OH) and retired General Wes Clark (AR). ABC's Political Punch has more, including a podcast from the DNC meeting.
Obama (D-IL) drew over "3,000 mostly sign-waving students" in Virginia, notes New York Times political blogger, Sarah Wheaton. The event was sponsored by the George Mason University chapter of Students for Barack Obama, a national, student-based grassroots organization. The group used Facebook, a social networking favorite among college students, to handle RSVPs for the February 2 appearance. More from the Associated Press here.

ZDNet tech blogger Donna Bogatin examines the online outreach of Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) and the results are mixed. She labeled his announcement speech ìstaidî and failing to make him stand out from other candidates declaring online. Questioning Biden's ability to connect to potential voters, Bogatin writes, "Perhaps Jill [Biden] should give Joe lessons in networking" after photos of the senator's wife receive more attention than the senator himself.

Jeremy Bronson, reporting for MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, chronicled how candidates are combating the YouTube effect and trying to turn it around in their favor.

One thing to watch this presidential campaign cycle will be the usage of YouTube by presidential candidates. YouTube allows a presidential candidate yet another avenue to engage potential supporters and voters, and it does so for an incredibly low price tag. All one needs is a digital video camcorder, a computer and an internet connection. The YouTube community doesn't demand the high production values that a TV audience requires. Another important aspect of YouTube is the viral aspect of it, particularly among an increasingly active and growing demographic, young voters.

A Rightwingnews.com poll suggests that Duncan Hunter has gained significant new support among the conservative netroots. Newt Gingrich was the most popular potential candidate, followed by Hunter and Mitt Romney. Chuck Hagel, George Pataki, and John McCain were very unpopular among the 230 participants in the poll.

The Politico and MSNBC are sponsoring the first GOP debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, CA on May 3. It will be broadcast online on the Politico's web site, where viewers can submit questions to the candidates.

John Edwards has become the first presidential candidate to -- unofficially -- tread into the Second Life waters.

(Former Virginia Governor Mark Warner actually got there first, but he dropped out of the race before there really was a race, so it's hard to count him as a candidate.)

The Web on the Candidates

"If the liberal blogs want to understand why so few people outside their narrow echo chamber take them seriously, and what it will take to gain the broader credibility they crave, they should look no further than their handling of the recent flap over John Edwards’ foul-mouthed blogger hires," says Dan Gerstein in the Politico.

Patrick Ruffini calls John Edwards' site a "mess," in part because, as Todd Ziegler notes, there are icons for and links to 24 social news/social networking sites. "I get it. The Edwards campaign is really into the whole Web 2.0 thing. Message delivered. I understand the power of these networks. I do. But 24 accounts? This just strikes me as sort of ridiculous," Ziegler says. Ruffini says there's also too much text on the home page: "A homepage should be made for scanning, so a big graphic with your message of the day, with icons and 5-6 word descriptions of your key features is what works best."

Ever since I first heard the announcement that John Edwards set up a campaign in Second Life, I've been very interested in finding out what the other candidates were doing there. I started with a search for Barack Obama and found that there were two groups in Second Life focusing on his campaign. The first is Obama for America, with 3 members, and the second is Obama for President, with 36 members.

The Web on the Candidates

The Editors Weblog reports that The New York Times and the New York Sun are both developing dedicated web sites to cover the 2008 election. "The migration of politics and political journalism to the web isn't quite new, but it sure is moving fast. We're moving too," NYT executive editor Bill Keller says.

Valleywag took a tour through John Edwards' unofficial space in Second Life and wound up asking, "where are all the people, anyway?" Well, there two people there, and the writer was able to hop on to a helicopter and hover next them, prompting one person to say, "Dude, there's a helicopter behind you."

This weekend I took an hour to review all the candidates sites as if I were coming to them ignorant -- simply using the web (as many will) to decide who to support. I assumed that I would start trying to figure out, "why are they running for President?" and then dig deeper. I did not use the bio sections of the site, but the structure and initial text. This is the superficial first pass. What, in two words, is the core message of each site?

The Web on the Candidates

Danny Glover at AirCongress posted a 45-minute video (it's hosted on YouTube; since Google owns it, they made an exception for the 10-minute video length rule) of Hillary Clinton speaking to with Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the Google headquarters last week. According to the Mercury News, Clinton first discussed policy issues with Google execs before speaking before a crowd of 200 Google employees. Although Bill Clinton enjoyed high popularity in Silicon Valley, Hillary still needs to work for their support. "She can draw on what Bill Clinton meant to the valley; it's definitely an asset. But I don't think it's immediately or fully transferable," says Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone. [via AirCongress]

Chris Cilliza of the Washington Post takes a look at the battle for netroots support among Democrats and sees that, unlike 2004 when the nascent movement supported Howard Dean, "the support of the netroots is less unified this time around." His three measures of support? The fundraising numbers on Act Blue (John Edwards leads the pack with over $900,000 raised), the DailyKos monthly poll (Edwards is first place with 26; Obama trails at 25 percent), and... techPresident, who provides the MySpace stats (Obama's on top).