A new spot from MoveOn that will become MTV's second ever political ad involves jokey references to STDs and a confusing chicken metaphor -- both things that are big hits with the kids!; an activist group spawned online is pioneering in the cable TV space, using a service that brokers tiny slices of airtime for as little as the cost of a sandwich; the RNC riffs off Facebook to shed some negative attention on Barack Obama's "friends," it we ask if the effort is worth it; and a great deal more, my friends, a great deal more.

We invoke "Fahrenheit 451" to assess Barack Obama's speech in Berlin yesterday; Obama gives a shout-out to the Iranian blogosphere; the McCain campaign launches a new event planning tool and the RNC unveils a fundraising tool bar; a senator from Oklahoma talks about how technology will save the Republic; and much, much more.

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.

The morning after President Bush signed FISA into law, the online left considers how it fits in Obama's world; John McCain turns to YouTube to make know his distaste for comments by his economic advisor Phil Gramm, Speaker Nancy Pelosi jumps into the Twitter Dome Scandal; and much, much more.

Now that FISA has been put to rest, what happens to the group that quickly formed to protest Obama's stance on the bill?; the Twitter Dome Scandal (we coined that!) heats up, and we break it all down for you; a new map tracks where in the world our presidential candidates are; and much, much more.

Carlo Scannella is a graduate student in the media studies department at The New School in New York City and one of the organizers of the Get FISA Right movement. We're happy to have him here. -- Nancy

The story of the Get FISA Right group has already been covered
heavily in the press. Here's
the 30 second version: A group protesting Barack Obama's decision to
support the current FISA legislation appeared
on his campaign website, and as tens of thousands of individuals
joined, it became not only the largest group on his site, but a
movement strong enough to force Obama to take notice. His response to the Get FISA Right group was a moment of validation; this became
something real.

Maybe a bit too real, as I found myself on Fourth of July weekend
sitting alone in a room on a conference call with 10 or so people I
had never met before in my life, logged into my email, editing a wiki,
organizing a political movement at breakneck speed -- all while my
family ate barbecue without me.

With it's last-ditch Night of Facebook Action, the anti-FISA group that was organized to protest Barack Obama's stance on the bill is turning into a case study in "worth a try" activism; Carly Fiorina is on the trail and defending John McCain's tech cred; we take a look at a dust-up over congressional rules on third-party web tools; a Daily Kos diarist pushes back against calls for millenials to take their activism to meat space; and much, much more.

The anti-FISA protests of Barack Obama swamp Google News search results for the bill; is the House of Representatives really trying to hush up Twittering Rep. John Culberson?; British PM Gordon Brown, facing no such restrictions, is reporting back from the G8 Summit in Japan; Obama's recording of his memoir might make some radio-friendly ad-fodder this election cycle; and much, much more.

As Barack Obama responds to protests of his FISA stance, we consider how an online action's success might be judged; NPR focuses on Hispanic voters and how candidates are working to get their messages delivered to them; a new quiz tests your political smarts; we've got new video up from PdF '08; and much, much more.

But this development is more properly seen as a natural evolution in any open, networked system that is allowed to operate in the political space. The credit belongs to his supporters, not Obama.

It's now a truism that when presented with an open platform, users will hack it to serve their purposes, not necessarily those of the sponsor. Many times, those two sets of priorities are intertwined (e.g. supporters desire to get involved matched with a campaign's need for volunteers), though in this case, they weren't.