Mike Huckabee's email to his list today called Franklin Raines the "Chief Economic Advisor" to Barack Obama. This is clearly false, and he should know better.

Ron Paul 2008 supporters and Howard Dean 2004 supporters played an important role in the failure of the bailout bill in Congress. Both campaigns ran highly decentralized campaigns, leaving in their wake organized persistent groups, groups that were not waiting for campaign instructions, but scheduled their own ongoing meetings. And both cultures were strongly opposed to the shift to massive executive power over the purse as imagined by the bailout proposal.

I gave a talk tonight discussing 10 years in the future, internet and politics, what it might produce. In researching the talk I found some current day political spores. Spore, for those who haven't followed, is a massive single player online game, sort of like facebook for rapidly evolving avatar-beast creatures, where you get to constantly update yourself, in the face of evolutionary challenges. (Spore-players, please correct me.)

No, I am still not tired of Huckwatching (during the primaries, I made Mike Huckabee's website my personal beat). I am increasingly convinced he's running for President in 2012 if Obama is in office. For those of you not on Huckabee's email list, he's been apoplectic about the proposed bailout.

I'm trying to find ways to describe what 700 billion means, and would like some help. 2,000 McDonalds Apple Pies for every American? Almost as much as the federal government takes in in income tax each year? 140 billion dollars more than has been spent on the Iraq war?

In the last few days I have gotten an email from an inordinate number of friends of mine.

The email they are forwarding purports to be from a woman from Wasilla who knew Palin. It includes lots of claims about her record as mayor and governor.

It is not obviously false, but as sent, I have no reason to believe it is true. In other words, it bears a distant resemblance to the demonstrably false Obama emails. Here are some thoughts about citizenship, empathy, and the forwarded "important info" email.

I was back reading the god blogs (a good list here, if a little dated) for reactions to the Palin pick, and realized another year has gone by, another GodblogCon is happening, and I can't go again. Its September 20-21st.

Last year I implored journalist friends to go, and I do so again. Its the biggest meeting of the godbloggers, its in Las Vegas, and its at a moment when both Christian religion and the internet are transforming elections. While the godbloggers may be interested in "how the internet is shaping christendom," I'm interested in how the Christian internet is shaping politics. In the words of Matthew Anderson at Mere Orthodoxy:

"Don’t forget also that GodBlogCon is coming up soon. Go forth and register."

More later on godblogger reactions to Palin.

I'm looking for examples or a good list of creative coverage of public hearings. As with many areas, the devil (and the angel, and the dancing bear--everything interesting) is bound to be in the details. Do you know of hubs of activists using twitter to cover planning commission meetings? Other, similar models?

Airlines are using their massive email databases--tens of millions?--to try to influence Congress. I think it foreshadows a big new world of leveraging corporate email databases for political influence.

While web participation is up, so are prison sentences; we need a web campaign to push for felons getting the right to vote.