It is conventional wisdom these days that Republicans are playing catchup on the Internet -- David All and GOP techPresident contributors excepted.

But Democrats shouldn't take their perceived online edge for granted. The GOP is aware of the gap and just hired a big gun to get its Internet operation back in the game.

Ben Smith at the Politico reports today that the RNC has hired Yahoo! exec and former Slate co-founder Cyrus Krohn as their eCampaign Director.

The Republican National Committee just launched a new online game called Scariest Democrat, a Halloween-themed contest attacking the Democratic presidential field that invites visitors to "click on the Scariest Democrat." Complete with creepy sound-effects, the site drew 65,000 visitors by 4pm on its first day, and RNC e-campaign manager Cyrus Krohn told Marc Ambinder that "nearly 9,000 people had spent the time to give the RNC their e-mail address in order to vote." But DNC internet director Josh McConaha isn't impressed by the RNC's numbers, and points to the Dems' recent online campaign for S-Chip that, he says, was as much as 16 times as effective at mobilizing supporters.

Cool new maps illustrated the political blogosphere like never before; Voter Search lets you find out your voting status in New York State; the Iowa Caucus Calculator makes caucus calculus easy; Mitt Romney and John McCain have dominated the buying of online ads; the RNC is obsessed with Hillary Clinton.

So the winners in NH or Clinton and McCain, much to everyone's surprise. Mike Connery has an excellent explanation for Clinton's success among young voters; Jeff Jarvis wonders if Obama could be the first candidate elected by the Internet; Todd Zeigler reviews Obama's revamped site design, and likes what he sees; Jose Antonio Vargas investigates the netroots' tepid support for Obama; Hillary Clinton suddenly voices support for government bloggers and transparency; and the RNC and DNC post stale responses to last night's victories.

Jeff Jarvis rounds up the many, many ways to chop, splice, and parse online data about the elections; General JC Christian produces a Second Life parody site devoted to Mike Huckabee; Al Qaeda asks its members to submit questions to its #2 leader; what Star Wars characters do the candidates remind you of?; Ron Paul launches an effort to recruit precinct captains; and RNC online operations guy Cyrus Krohn gets a nice puff piece.

Voto Latino combines the telenovela with voter registration; the brief rise and fall of Unity 08; why are we seeing such a rise in Democratic voter turnout?; the Clinton Spendometer makes an outrageous claim about Hillary Clinton's spending proposals; Barack Obama is raising a ton of money in the aftermath of South Carolina; the Obama campaign continues to an email issuing from a dark place in America; and Hillary again responds to supporters' questions in a new video.

Pushing the next president to use participatory media; GOP.com launches the Obama Spendometer; if we get President's Day off, shouldn't we get Election Day off?; comparing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's organizing philosophies; Ron Paul staffers describe his online campaign, deride Obama has too top down; how do offline GOTV operations actually work?; Vermont's having a primary too, and ice cream moguls Ben and Jerry are riding around in their ObamaMobile to support Barack.

Last week, the McCain campaign announced a break from the BC'04 command-and-control model in the political department. There will be no political director, and instead authority will be devolved to the states and regions.

What does this mean for technology and the McCain campaign?

Jose Antonio Vargas thinks Barack Obama's early popularity online pointed to his electoral success; Color of Change hits Hillary for "race-baiting"; Al Franken is annoyed by a pesky blogger; the New York Times botches superdelegate data, and Congresspedia gets it right; super-conservative Richard Viguerie launches anti-John McCain site; Micah Sifry livestreamed on Qik; Obama launches a huge voter registration drive; the RNC hits Obama with an attack ad, almost securing him as the Democratic nominee in the process; and Obama wins an award for its texting smarts

An anti-Hillary Facebook glitch; looking for the Digital New Deal; looking at the average worth of legislators vs. American families; White House Rocks and the superdelegate superheroes; a Mediabistro circus will focus on online journalism and politics; the RNC and John McCain launch two new green sites; Barack Obama post online ad jobs on Craigslist; Gov Gab wants your input; and Obama and Bono to duet?