The half dozen contenders for the post of RNC chairman gathered yesterday for an event that was threaded through with what might fairly be called an obsession with technology...When we discussed a report in the New York Times yesterday that Barack Obama would finally (cue whiny voice) be naming a Chief Technology Officer this Wednesday, we commented, "we'll see." Well, looks like we won't...The Obama transition has gone down a somewhat different road than Bill Clinton in revealing its donors -- though, of course, the motivations and expectations are entirely different...and more.

It was the sweltering late summer, 2007, in Washington DC. The House of Representatives was smack in the middle of debate over the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. And members of Congress, expected to render judgment on legislation that would fundamentally impact core America rights, hadn't laid eyes upon the latest copy of the bill. It's "just absolute lunacy," said California Republican David Dreir of the situation at the time...On the point above, one of the fundamental questions of our time is this: how do we use all the government information the Internet might set free for public good? An open debate over that question is now taking place on the Google Group of the Sunlight Foundation's nascent Open Senate Project...The latest email from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe announcing the selection of the incoming administration's national security and foreign policy team includes a big ol' red button asking for contributions...and much more.

The full fury of the progressive netroots has turned on Minnesota Republican congressman Michelle Bachmann -- and it might put her House seat in jeopardy; The National Political Do Not Contact Registry's Shaun Dakin has picked up on the Twitter Vote Report idea and proposed using Twitter to track the automated campaign calls that have been in the news of late; The news today is that the Obama campaign raked in $150 million last month. That's a ton of money, and it frees Obama to compete in parts of the country where the math heretofore didn't make sense for a Democrat; and a good deal more.

More than one million of Barack Obama's three-million-plus donor pool made a repeat donation in September. Most, if not all, of these people, are doing a lot more on Obama's behalf. Behold the power of the donor-activist model.

Last April we told you about an effort by an independent filmmaker that aimed to organize Obama supporters to donate $1 million to the candidate in under 1 minute. (They ended up raising a respectable $245,000 in a couple minutes.)

Now the same effort is back with a new face. "An Obama Minute" aims to raise $1 million on Monday between 12:00 and 12:01 in the afternoon, helped along by an interactive billboard in Times Square (and accompanying widget).

Just over a week ago came the remarkable news that the McCain campaign had raised some $7 million almost immediately after the announcement of Sarah Palin as his running mate, and some $4.5 million of it reportedly poured in online. Palin continues to be a big fundraising draw, including sending out emails with cash asks in the wee hours after her convention speech. If you're not a campaign finance geek, you might think that John McCain's opting into the public financing system for the general election actually limits his campaign to the $84 million provided by the public and otherwise ties his hands when it comes to aggressive online fundraising, through both his email list and his official website at JohnMcCain.com that's paid for by "McCain-Palin 2008." But as it turns out, you'd be wrong. Nothing having to do with money in politics is that simple. (Barack Obama, of course, opted out of public funding altogether back in late June.) McCain's online fundraising operation is a lesson in the complex and, frankly, downright convoluted way American politics is paid for today.

Need proof? Just visit the contribution page on JohnMcCain.com.

Some voters may still be working out their reaction to Sarah Palin's hard charging speech last night, but her address and its sustained needling of Barack Obama certainly won insta-plaudits on the online right; Former Reagan aide Peggy Noonan's had a hit mic incident yesterday when an MSNBC microphone seemed to catch her off-air calling the McCain campaign "over" after its Palin pick, and the clip went what can only be called really, really viral; Palin's dig at community organizers in last night's speech ("I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities") has set the left-leaning blogosphere aflame; and much, much more.

The common wisdom is that BarackObama.com is not only better at wrangling donations from the faithful, but is categorically better than JohnMcCain.com because it embraces an interactive as opposed to a broadcast model.

But let's not kid ourselves. At its core, BarackObama.com is not truly interactive. It is transactional.

The Prince of Darkness explains away his propagation of the story that John McCain was picking a running mate this week by saying that all he did was post the story on the Internet; barackobama@gmail.com is not the direct connection to the Democratic candidate's inbox that we may have thought it was; a new video feature puts congressional competitors head-to-heard, answering the same questions; and loads more.

Both the online left and the online right gather in Austin, though the size and profile of Netroots Nation demonstrates the distance that conservatives still have to travel on the Internet; a congressman takes up a new post as Flip-equipped correspondent for the effort to move elections to a more sensible day; a candidate's web comic helps to sextuple the existing fundraising record in his race; and much, much more.