The Web on the Candidates

• Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton to win Wisconsin and Hawaii last night, giving journalists a chance to convince the public that the apocalypse is approaching (Ben Smith’s wrap-up was titled “Obama win sets stage for showdown”). Word on the street is that Obama had a serious text campaign in effect, though the notoriously tight-lipped Obama web guy Scott Goodstein isn’t talking (we’re working on it).

• As she moves into Ohio and Texas in advance of their March 4 primaries, it looks like Clinton will continue her attacks on Obama for being too focused on the power of words and light on the power of action. As she told auto workers in Ohio a few days ago, “Speeches don’t fill up your tank, or fill your prescription, or do anything about that stack of bills that keeps you up at night.” But government tech consultant Matthew Burton — who isn’t an Obama supporter — calls this line of argument “hogwash.” To prove it, he analyzes the policy content of Obama and Clinton’s websites and finds that -- suprise! -- Obama offers more details on his plans. So, asks Burton, why is the "myth" that Obama is all style and no substance finding an audience? Ironically, "Probably because he is a great orator."

• But who’s stealing from who? We aren’t the first to point out that this War of the Words is getting a little ridiculous, but it is. As we noted yesterday, a video showing some serious similarities between a Deval Patrick speech and one by Barack Obama is getting heavy rotation on YouTube (it’s now up to 350,000 views). Now a video has emerged showing Hillary Clinton leading a crowd in a chant of “Yes we will! Yes we will!” It’s been viewed 57,000 times. Another shows her paraphrasing Obama in a speech about this campaign being about “your hopes and dreams,” but it’s barely been viewed at all. When will it all stop? When John McCain accuses Obama of calling his supporters “my friends?” (Jonathan Tilove reminds us that borrowing phrases is nothing new in politics.)

• The hockey-stick candidate lives: according to our YouTube charts, views of Barack Obama’s videos have taken off even more. Between February 12 and February 18, almost 4,000,000 people viewed his videos, with a big spike between the 12th and the 13th (more than 1.5 million views in that day), following his victories in the “Potomac primaries.” Meanwhile, views of Clinton’s videos have just barely nudged upward. Our Facebook charts show almost exactly the same trends for both candidates.

• John McCain continues to flatline on YouTube, trailing significantly behind Mike Huckabee, who is also flatlining, and Ron Paul, who’s continuing to ascend. Interestingly, there’s some life to McCain’s profile on Facebook; perhaps online Republican voters are accepting his inevitability and getting on board.

The Candidates on the Web

• As our own Nancy Scola noted yesterday, law professor and free culture champion Larry Lessig is considering a run for Congress. Despite its support from some of the most progressive voices in the blogosphere, Lessig’s run — predicated on his commitment to not taking money from lobbyists, voting against earmarks, and supporting public financing — could potentially draw conservatives and liberals to his campaign. The web, predictably, is abuzz, and more than $8,000 has been raised on ActBlue for his run.

In Case You Missed It…

If he is the nominee, Zephyr Teachout hopes Obama will accept spending limits, but not for the reasons typically given. Giving money directs grassroots activity right now—it defines the bulk of the email messages from the campaign. But without that ask, he’ll have millions of people who can’t give money but really want to act, so they’ll have to do something: organize, strategize, canvass, go door to door, street canvass, research, make movies, make music, create sports teams…

For a while Patrick Ruffini has been mentally keeping tabs on Obama’s online fundraising numbers via the live count of the number of donors on his web site. However, it’s no RonPaulGraphs.com, with its deep analytics probing daily donation activity. So, he’s decided to crowdsource his monitoring of Obama’s website, and he needs your help.

Larry Lessig is tying a possible congressional run to the question of whether or not launching a campaign and/or actually serving as a member of Congress is the best way to advance a national “grassroots” Change Congress movement. Nancy Scola thinks it’s a provocative question, and it’s exciting to watch the Stanford prof and free culture guru go through the process of answering it.

On the night of yet another night of compulsive browser refreshes to find out the Wisconsin primary results, the flap over Barack Obama’s alleged plagiarism of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s words continued to escalate, with a hit YouTube video to boot.