(Crossposted from ClickZ.)

Barack Obama's presidential campaign spent over $16 million on online advertising in 2008. John McCain's camp spent a fraction of that: around $3.6 million. Google was far and away the winner, taking in an estimated $7.5 million of Obama ad dollars in 2008, about 45 percent of the campaign's digital ad spending, according to Federal Election Commission reports. Some of that money went toward display and text ads in Google's AdSense network, and some was used for ads appearing in search results on Google's site.

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Dozens of senior web managers spanning federal agencies from USDA to HUD to NASA to EPA to ASDF (okay, we made that last one up) have penned a useful white paper with recommendations for the next presidential administration...This latest and last video installment of the life and times of Barney, the White House dog, is truly something to behold. The Bush family gathers to celebrate Christmas in this stilted and scripted piece, and you have to get a load of the President acting out some intentionally goofy lines, like when he admonishes his pet to quit "nappin' to the finish"...If you ever get the question from colleagues, allies, or clients, "We want to get all web 2.0 up in this piece. Hmm, where do we start?," then we've got something for you...and more.

There's a dust-up over network neutrality that we'll do our darnedest to encapsulate in one bullet point. Ready? Let's go. Google, reported the Wall Street Journal's Vishesh Kumar and Christopher Rhoads, has been quietly pushing a plan to create "a fast lane for its own content"...Republican rank-and-file are urging their leaders to embrace technology or face "suicide"...As the cloak of secrecy that surrounded the Obama campaign gets pulled back the slightest bit, we're finally learning the truly important stuff: which Obama logo mock-ups didn't make the cut...and still more.

Back in the day, when Yahoo! was the only search game in town, many wondered why Ask Jeeves (now Ask.com), and eventually Google would attempt to break into that market. The answer continues to be the same - although they're good, there's still a lot to be done with Search. Contextual search is still being explored, and in terms of government and campaign information, most documents are not publicly or easily available to the search engines. With the goal of open government in mind, I decided to take a look at five relatively new search companies that recently launched sites, hoping that perhaps some of them could help make search of government and campaign data a little better, honing in on the FEC, OMB and more.

Now's a good time to ask, what the heck happened with the defeat of the bailout bill on Capitol Hill on Monday?; Debate? What debate? Oh, there's a debate tonight. The Internet has bubbled up some ways to play along with Palin vs. Biden; Wow. The Obama campaign has released a gorgeous new iPhone app; Congress has okayed a bill that requires the government to regularly and accurately assess who in the U.S. has broadband access and who doesn't. If we may humbly advance an opinion: excellent!; and a good deal more. Honest.

Upon hearing the startling news yesterday that John McCain had tapped Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate, the first thing many of us in the Lower 49 did was to hustle to our computers, BlackBerries, and iPhones to try to get up to speed on her. What we found: the Republican vice presidential nominee is being defined by what's been written about her on Wikipedia, rather than by what the McCain campaign wants the world to know. It's hard not to see that as a missed opportunity of Alaskan proportions.

The folks out in Mountain View jump into political waters with both feet; the Democratic fundraising hub ActBlue has raised what is technically known in the field as "gobs and gobs of cash;" we indulge our Olympic obsession; l'affair Edwards exposes a rift in the liberal blogosphere; a former Clinton Administration official challenges McCain's recollection of his tech accomplishments on Capitol Hill; and quite a tremendous amount more.

Do millennials need to start strengthening their collective action muscles?; the anti-telecom immunity group on MyBarackObama.com is on track to be the social-networking site's top group later this week; Wesley Clark makes use of his Facebook status line to stand his ground on comments regarding John McCain's national security chops; is Newt Gingrich's Drill Here, Drill Now group poised to become the conservative equivalent of Move On?; and much, much more.

Barack Obama's campaign spent nearly $3 million on online advertising related purchases between January and April. The biggest recipient of the Democratic Presidential hopeful's online ad dollars was Google.

Today, one of the Republican Party's fastest rising stars, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, joined New Orleans Democratic Mayor Ray Nagin to announce that they are working with YouTube and Google to "bring American voices into a forum with Presidential nominees."

Video and more after the jump.