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.

John McCain takes a drubbing on YouTube; the conservative blogosphere and Obama's Auschwitz "gaffe"; Congress, Franking Rules, and wikis; the Forum on Participation and Politics Online is next week; your humble Daily Digester passes the baton; and Newt gets 100,000 signatures on a domestic oil drilling petition.

What follows is the first-person account of the making of the viral video of Pastor John Hagee that precipitated Senator John McCain's decision to renounce Hagee's endorsement of his candidacy. Wilson is a co-founder of the E Pluribus Media blogger collective, and blogs at Talk To Action. This is his story, the story of a citizen journalist who changed the course of the race. It is reposted with his permission. The editors.

This Sunday is the Puerto Rico Primary, and the Democratic candidates are doing their best to show their inner Puerto Rican-ness by dancing in the streets, drinking the local beer, and speaking accented Spanish. We’ll see how they fare on Sunday. Also, a curious Memorial Day message from John McCain and a glimpse at Hillary Clinton’s early life in elementary school.

A Digg-style site lets Obama supporters make suggestions to the campaign; a video of a Young Hillary Clinton; who, exactly, are these online Republicans we hear about?; Click 4 Obama makes a political FreeRice site; Causes posts some big numbers; and the RNC launches a Obama Iraq countdown clock.

John McCain's often aimless email messages are something of a recurring theme here at techPresident, so much so that we're dubbing the topic "McCain Email Watch."  Patrick Ruffini got us started with a post on the "fundamental disconnect" of McCain's "stitled" online personality, and I followed up on a distinct lack of links in a recent McCain campaign email.

But McCain's email problems are worse than we first thought.  Case-in-point: today's fundraising message that offered a 3'x6' personalized banner for the low price of $250.

A fake superdelegate on YouTube; Hillary can't catch a break online; Grover Norquist shows up in the RNC's "Can We Ask" campaign; graphic designers get out the vote; new speakers announced for PdF 2008; John McCain shores up his tech policy; a McCain adviser answers Wired readers' questions; Hillary's t-shirt contest enters the voting stage; Ron Paul's been employing tons of family members; and a Member of Congress uses Qik.