The Web on the Candidates

• The AP's Grant Slater profiles the political passions of Ron Paul's supporters, noting that though their support can't be seen in national polls, "it's unmatched among presidential candidates." He profiles a few of the supporters -- including one Avery Knapp, who can be found commenting on this blog from time to time -- who have blogged about the campaign, drummed up support in polls and messageboards, and promoted the candidate on YouTube. One even constructed a huge "Google Ron Paul" sign on a rooftop in the East Village in New York. Although many of Paul's supporters are new to politics, they're often web natives who are comfortable with decentralized organizing efforts. "These guys in Meetup, hardly any of them have any political experience," said supporter Steven Heath. "These people are newbies. They're about to get plugged in, and they'll be plugged in with Paul's ideas."
• Matt Bai's "The Argument" is out, and so is the buzz. The book -- about "billionaires, bloggers, and the battle to remake Democratic politics" -- was reviewed by Nick Gillespie in the New York Times Book Review this weekend. Gillespie agrees with the book's central premise, that despite recent successes and the birth of the netroots, the Democratic Party is continuing to lack big ideas. Among netroots bloggers, however, the reception has been, well, cooler. DailyKos blogger MissLaura points out that while Bai focuses heavily on Markos Zuniga and Jerome Armstrong, he fails to understand that the netroots is a movement of thousands or millions, not a crowd led by a couple of celebrities. Other Kos diarists have also piped in, contributing to a layered critique of a book that, if anything else, should galvanize discussion about the direction of the party.
• It's not quite about the web, but what the hell: Dan Balz had a great piece in Sunday's Washington Post stating that, as we pass Labor Day, "what happens from here on will matter far more than what has happened up to now." For folks now paying a bit more attention, he offers seven questions and answers about the race, ranging from "Is the Clinton campaign a true juggernaut -- or is that just what she wants everyone to believe?" to "Does the new, turbo- charged calendar make Iowa and New Hampshire more important -- or less?" Nothing about technology here, so we would add something about how Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube will continue to affect the election, how is technology changing the nature of presidential debates, and what are the different ways candidates and supporters are using video?
• The New York Times' Katherine Seelye and Adam Nagourney also wrote post-Labor Day "what do the voters think" roundups. Seelye finds" that the GOP candidates have thus far failed to impress. "Interviews with dozens of Republicans across the country this Labor Day weekend found that despite the already lengthy campaign, which started almost a year ago, many candidates have made either no impression or a negative one, and many voters are still chewing over their options," Seelye writes. Meanwhile, Nagourney finds that Democratic voters are "enthusiastic about their presidential choices and, if slightly nervous about potential weaknesses in their candidates, confident of victory in 2008."

The Candidates on the Web

• Last week Mitt Romney announced a create-your-own-ad contest, and savvy supporters are showing up on Jumpcut to produce their own pro-Romney creations. All of the voter-created ads are featured on Romney's Jumpcut page, and just about every one comes across as a kind of cheesy movie preview, with images of a strong and patriotic Mitt and his adoring supporters backed by serious band music worthy of a late-period Sean Connery action flick. It's very cool that Mitt is giving his supporters this chance, but we wonder about the internal Mitt-filters, and what they're not letting through. I didn't find anything critical of him in there, and our own investigations have led us to believe that anything controversial or satirical won't make the cut.

In Case You Missed It...

David All is happy to report that, after a weekend site outage, Rudy Giuliani is sporting a new website, a public Myspace page, and an actual Facebook profile.

While Patrick Ruffini applauds Fred Thompson for choosing to announce his candidacy online, he's not so pleased with how the campaign has handled the run up to the announcement.