Ron Paul supporters gathered in droves in Minneapolis yesterday just 10 miles across the Mississippi River from where the official Republican National Convention is taking place. The occasion? A highly-charged "Rally for the Republic" meant to send a clear message to the Republican establishment assembled in the Twin Cities this week. Now, the Texas congressman might be best known to us for developing a devoted digital following. But wandering through the Target Center last night it was difficult to doubt Paul's ability to rally the masses off the Interwebs.

It's been a while since I've checked in on our charts tracking how the campaigns are doing on the web, and even though we're now firmly headed into the August doldrums before the national conventions, some interesting trends are worth noting. In a word: Obama keeps adding friends, but McCain has been gaining traffic. And Bob Barr seems to have some real grass-roots support...

Looking back at the past 18 months, what’s remarkable about the 2008 campaign is how unremarkable it’s actually been when it comes to the use of the Internet. While Patrick Ruffini earlier argued that Barack Obama’s website is boring, it’s been stewing in my mind for months that the entire cycle has been rather ho-hum.

All campaigns, from the presidential level on down, have seemed to be unwilling, or unable, to rewrite the rules of the game when it comes to how technology is used in electoral politics. They have (pardon the word play) been shiftless in producing a paradigm shift. And maybe, after the upheavals of 2004 and 2006, that should be expected.

Bill Richardson and -- sooprise, sooprise -- Ron Paul come out on top of Slate's vice-presidential picker; the Obama campaign is, in the words of one Dean veteran, not innovative but "extraordinarily professional;" we get a look into how professionally-made video fits into the Obama campaign; and much, much more.

t's Friday, which means it's time for our favorite new political videos the week. From Kosovo minefields to lobbyist lollypops to "fist bumps of hope," we've got it all.

A fake superdelegate on YouTube; Hillary can't catch a break online; Grover Norquist shows up in the RNC's "Can We Ask" campaign; graphic designers get out the vote; new speakers announced for PdF 2008; John McCain shores up his tech policy; a McCain adviser answers Wired readers' questions; Hillary's t-shirt contest enters the voting stage; Ron Paul's been employing tons of family members; and a Member of Congress uses Qik.

You may be surprised at who some Ronulans are voting for this November; ProgressNowAction asks for your witty anti-McCain captions; hands-down, the best Hillary impression we've seen; only 2% of ad dollars will be spent online in '08; Googlers have a tough time spelling Hillary's name; the Obama campaign steers supporters away from 527s; Frank Lautenberg misses the chance to emulate Obama's online approach; Ralph Nader visits Google; and Al Gore tried to buy Digg in 2006.

As I suspected, the "Hillary raised $10 million online overnight" report that the Washington Post ran with earlier today was too good to be true. I don't know if the mistake is the reporter's or if someone at Camp Hillary was spinning a bit too fast, but there's no way they raised that much since her win in Pennsylvania yesterday.

Here are my notes for the talk I'm about to give at Politics Web 2.0 on "The Revolution Will Be Networked: How Open Source Politics is Emerging in America.” (Caveat emptor, your experience may vary.)

Media Matters illustrates just how many lobbyists are working on McCain's campaign; stop all political robo calls now!; folks Hillaryis44 create a 48-state flag; a kerfuffle over McCain, Obama, and Mark Warner advertising on an anti-immigration site; McCain finally starts advertising with Google; and RonPaulGraphs.com shuts down.