The Web on the Candidates

• Remember 1992? The year grunge forced flannel shirts on the backs of millions of Gen Xers? When Aladdin was the top-grossing film? Oh yeah, and the year when Bill Clinton won the presidency? He and VP Al Gore were so dashing, flying around the country with their wives.

  

  A new Facebook group called Spirit of ‘92 wants to reclaim those glory years, though it’s hard to understand that because the “Recent News” blurb is dominated by paranoid privacy warnings like "If any member does not trust another, their concern shall be given to one of the administrators of the group. While some may see this as unnecessary, it is required if we are going to share the truth among people we trust." That kinda kills any communal spirit the group might have inspired (there are only 56 members)… spirit of ‘92 indeed!

• Another Facebook group has had a bit more success in the kumbaya department. This morning I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who dislike George Bush! reached its goal.

• Barack Obama continues to be a favorite of Hollywood, and this weekend Tom Hanks announced his support in a video on MySpace. Hanks — always smart and self-effacing — knows that a celebrity endorsement doesn’t mean much to voters. “As an official celebrity I know that my endorsement has just made your mind up for you,” he says sarcastically. Nevertheless, he’s serious, and points to the historical moment an Obama presidency would usher in that, he says, would be the most significant shift in American politics since the day in 1797 when the presidency passed peaceably from George Washington to John Adams. But wasn’t Bosom Buddies awesome?

• Is there a real Lamont Williams? It’s unclear if there’s a robo-man behind the robo-voice in the robo-calls placed by Women’s Voices Womens Vote in North Carolina, which some allege were designed to intimidate black voters. Last week we discovered a Twitter feed from “Lamont Williams” that was decidedly not real; this weekend Wired’s Sarah Lai Stirland got fed up and and asked if the real Lamont Williams could please stand up. WVWV claims Williams was a voice performer they hired for the ad, but Stirland hasn’t been able to track him down. So here’s an echo: Lamont, we know you’re out there. Please get in touch.

• Craigslist founder and customer-service rep (it’s his term) Craig Newmark has already come out as an Obama supporter, but he reiterated that support today in the Huffington Post. Newmark’s big issues are ethics reform and transparency, and for him Obama is the right guy. “You want some “change” that’s for real, this is it. Barack is part of the team who wants to change politics by getting rid of a lot of the bad guys. Hillary, not so much,” he writes.

The Candidates on the Web

• Ron Paul isn’t on the campaign trail much these days — though that didn’t stop him from getting nearly 15.9% of the vote in Pennsylvania — but now he can start touring for his new book. Titled The Revolution: A Manifesto, it’s sure to reignite Ronulan fires across the land. Some Paulites have already migrated over to the comments on Amazon. Amazingly, he’s already won an Amazon straw poll calling him the Best Writer Ever. We kid.

• Thought the presidential race was getting tiresome? Not to worry — Rep. Bob Barr may be running for president as a Libertarian (watch out Gravel!). We know he’s serious because he set up a YouTube channel, which can barely contain his screeds against liberty-haters everywhere. Check out this one, in which he talks about decapitating nannies or something.