It's probably not every day that Vermont socialist Senator Bernie Sanders and Kentucky's uber-conservative Senator Jim Bunning get nearly the same emails for standing up against the same bill. But emails are pouring into every corner of Capitol Hill objecting to the Bush Administration's $700 billion no-oversight bailout measure; A quick peek at InTrade's Electoral Vote Predictor might be a fun way to take the temperature of the betting class, but FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver reports that the market seems funny of late; "Joe Biden's gaffes have become so excessive that we've now dedicated an entire site," says the Republican National Committee, which had previously been keeping track of the Dem VP candidates supposedly goofs with a simple clock; and much more.

On August 30, 2006, Senator John McCain co-signed a letter to "Ms. Sarah H. Palin" of 245 West 5th Avenue #28, Anchorage, AK, 99501. He, along with his co-signers former Governor Michael Dukakis, former US Rep. Bill Frenzel, and former US Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, were acting in their role as members of the board of Project Vote Smart, a nonpartisan citizen group. They were asking Palin, who was then one of several candidates for Governor of Alaska, to agree to take the "National Political Awareness Test" and tell citizens her positions on issues of concern to voters in her state.

The letter noted that her answers would be reported as verbatim and distributed through PVS's website, which at the time was receiving upwards of 16 million hits a day, along with its printed "Voter's Self-Defense Manuals," its 1-800-Vote-Smart hotline, and thousands of libraries and community centers.

Palin never answered the letter from McCain and crew. Of course, she was not alone.

Much has been made here and elsewhere about John McCain's admission that he's illiterate -- computer illiterate, that is. But now that the tickets on both the Republican and Democratic sides have been fleshed out with running mates, it's worth taking a look at where vice presidential picks Sarah Palin and Joe Biden fall on the tech spectrum.

When it finally arrived, I was disappointed. Barack's team missed an enormous opportunity to communicate personally, to me, from Barack.

Let me explain to you where I'm coming from...

Shortly after 3 AM on the east coast, the long-awaited text message from Barack Obama announcing Joe Biden had finally arrived. But it was something short of letting the cat out of the bag. At 10:50 pm on Friday night, ABC News confirmed that Biden was getting Secret Service protection. The first official confirmation that I could find came from CNN at 12:45 a.m. The promised "be the first to know" text message came a full two hours later.

Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee win the Iowa caucuses on a night of record turnouts, especially by youth voters; could Eventful demands be accurate predictors of primary results?; Elaine Young considers what effect social media may have had on last night's results; Ron Paul gets dissed, again, by the media; Chris Dodd and Joe Biden drop out, but Mike Gravel absolutely DID NOT; a new poll confirms that more Americans are getting their election news online; and what if the top GOP web consultants were trekkies?

Who will be America's first techPresident? It's time to grade the candidates on their understanding of the power of the internet to transform America's future. We start with the Democratic field...

The Giuliani Quote Generator Facebook app automates absurdist phrases; Off The Bus speaks truth to the polls, launches its new Polling Project; Ask Your Lawmaker Diggifies the public's questions to the candidates; is Karl Rove a better pundit than Markos Moulitsas?; A clip from the Joe Scarborough show is another example of journalists focusing on anything but the issues; VetVoice, a site devoted to veterans' issues in the campaign, launches with a number of candidate posts on the way; analyzing and voting on campaign logos; a new Obama video takes health care head-on; and TechCrunch interviews John Edwards.

I always love it when Google changes their basic logo to commemorate holidays and special days. Thanksgiving has meant a riff on a turkey sitting on a sofa, Edvard Munch's birthday warranted a version of his Scream painting, and so on (check out the archive of special Google logos here).

So naturally I looked for the candidates' take on this webby tradition, but most of them are too serious to acknowledge Halloween at all. Trick, or treat?

Why do more men than women engage with political websites? Are they avoiding doing the dishes?; A new site in support of Ron Paul gets into field organizing; Ann Romney has a new blog; and third-quarter fundraising numbers are starting to come in, and Ron Paul is the big surprise.