The Web on the Candidates

• It will truly be the first YouTube election. A week after MySpace announced they're hosting presidential town halls across the country, YouTube has announced they'll be co-sponsoring, with CNN, the first of six Democratic debates and are in talks to co-sponsor a Republican debate. There aren't any details on the format yet, but this is certainly a good development in light of the work that Larry Lessig and others have done to ensure that TV footage from the debates is legally accessible online. We'll follow up as we learn more.
• In their latest Politics 2.0 column in the Politico, some guys named Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry (they have something to do with a certain technology and politics conference and web site) write about the rise of the netizen, a new breed of citizen-activists who "are mastering the new platforms, tools, information systems and social networks available online and using them to push new ideas or galvanize new communities for change." Presidential campaigns can't dismiss the influence of these "super-empowered citizens," because "unlike volunteers of old, if you cross them, they can hurt you on a national scale. If you embrace them, they may be more valuable than any consultant you can find."
• Bill Richardson is the latest presidential candidate to visit the Googleplex in Mountain View for a chat with Google employees. As is their custom, the entire conversation, which is over an hour long, is up on YouTube.

The Candidates on the Web

• Hillary Clinton shows a sense of humor about herself in a new video -- which is NOT a Hillcast (what happened to those?) -- but certainly looks like one. She asks her supporters to help her with a very important decision... to help her choose a theme song. Alas, you can't submit ideas of your own, but you can choose from among smash hits like "Suddenly I See" by KT Tunstall, "I'm a Believer" by Nei- I mean The Mon- I mean Smash Mouth, and "Beautiful Day" by U2. The video include the infamous clip of Hillary singing the national anthem off-key (for some reason, I can't get enough of that clip), and she promises not to sing the chosen song... unless she wins. Is that an incentive or disincentive to vote Clinton in '08?

In Case You Missed It...

Justin Oberman finds Hillary Clinton's new text-message campaign less impressive than the PR it's receiving.

Colin Delany finds that, while the candidates are spending resources on websites, social networks, and videos, they are "ignoring a simple and effective tool to help their supporters find volunteers, raise money and spread messages: web widgets."