Let's take a bite at one of the bigger questions floating around the technology and politics world at the moment. The subject: the future of the Republican Party. Does the redemption of the GOP rest with mastering the field, communications, and fundraising technologies that Barack Obama used to good effect in his presidential win? Or do conservatives need to take this moment, when they control not one of the branches of government, to re-figure out just what it is the party stands for, what political need it fills in the hearts and minds of American voters? The real answer, of course, isn't one or the other -- not wholeheartedly, at least. But implicit in the question is a compelling debate over just what technology is good for when it comes to politics, from winning elections to governing in a way that gives you a shot at getting re-elected.

Jose Antonio Vargas has been covering the intersection of politics and technology for the Washington Post since February of last year, and he's got a pre-New Year's wrap up of what he's learned along the way...Some of the digs against Digg, the community-ranking site, is that it's biased against women and weighted in favor of liberals. On the latter, enter #diggcons...MoveOn's Eli Pariser is out with a nice Washington Post op-ed laying out the case for why a President Barack Obama will need to tap into the wisdom and passions of the electorate if he's truly going to make transformational change on health care, the Iraq war, and energy policy -- the issues at the top of both his and the American people's agendas...and more.

Republican State Assemblyman Chuck Devore of California is the subject of compelling online experiment as he attempts to unseat sitting Senator Barbara Boxer -- a Twitter-based fundraising drive, under the banner of #TCOT (that is, Top Conservatives on Twitter)...he President-elect's weekly YouTube'd appeals to the American public aren't as popular as they once were...Resolved: Appending "2.0" to anything is incredibly dorky...and much more.

The Democratic Strategist's Ed Kilgore is out with his critique of RebuildTheParty.com's "10-Point Action Plan to Strengthen and Modernize the Republican Party." That's the rightroots' manifesto authored just after November 4th by Mindy Finn and Patrick Ruffini, two names that should be familiar around these parts.

Small Donations, Mid-Sized Donors, and Obama's Cash "Revolution;" "There's Still a Big Hole in Our Game Plan...;" Keeping Up the Democratic Web; Kossacks Take to Congress; Open-Source Obama; and much more.

More on young voters in 2008; lost votes in California?; Ben Smith shares the labor and the smarts; Real Clear Politics earns some kudos; Matt Stoller reinvents campaign finance reform; Patrick Leahy wants the Founding Fathers online; what went wrong for Mitt Romney; McCain aide shares some secrets; GOP "money-bomb" bombs; Josh reports from Italy; our favorite videos; and some reality checks to end the week.

According to a new poll 45% of voters think the next president will get the tubes as much as they do; the internet also makes you smarter; Patrick Ruffini hustles to get the GOP nominee some funds in the aftermath of Super Tuesday; a fun interview with Craig Newmark; Karl Rove sends down tablets listing the new rules of politicking and and the still applicable old rules; the HuffPost's Fundrace now lets you map the political contributions of celebrities, friends, and neighbors; John McCain is one potential GOP nominee who actually understands tech policy; and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton offer gracious notes to John and Elizabeth on their sites, with absolutely no ulterior motives.

Matt Bai identifies the core lesson of the Dean campaign, and says that almost no 2008 campaigns have actually learned it; ActBlue seeks to move beyond individual fundraising; William Beutler stays on the Republican ActBlue beat; the ONE campaign produces videos of the candidates' statements on poverty, but most Republicans aren't involved; OuijaVote 2008 is the first project to restore our "paranormal democracy"; new Compete data breaks down candidate site popularity by state; and our Hitwise charts show Mike Huckabee pulling even with Ron Paul in his share of web traffic.

John McCain is the next candidate up in the MTV/MySpace presidential dialogues; we'll be liveblogging it direct from New Hampshire; dirty emails tricks are cropping up in Iowa; YouTube encourages user responses to the candidates and the about last week's debate; Google is the new GE. Is that a good thing?; the Blog P.I. looks at three Republican fundraising sites and chooses his favorite; and the web is full of misogynistic mudslinging about Hillary Clinton.

Rightroots, another competitor to Act Blue, relaunches; MTV is looking for a few good citizen journalists; Silicon Valley is the new Detroit; Chris Dodd releases a video montage focusing on -- gasp! -- the issues; and Daylife experiments with a list of the most commonly-used phrases by the candidates.