The Web on the Candidates

• Yesterday, we linked to a post from Giuliani advisor Patrick Ruffini in which he disagreed with people who think the Democrats own the Internet.  TechPresident's Mike Turk engages Ruffini in a long response to the post, questioning assumptions about media attention paid to Democrats and Republicans, word of mouth marketing, campaign organization, and more.  It's a detailed and thoughtful discussion -- check it out. 
• MyDD has a new straw poll out, and not only is John Edwards in first place, almost 10 points ahead of Barack Obama, but Hillary Clinton is fifth place, almost 40 points behind Edwards and over point behind "Other."  Given that MyDD's readers are overwhelmingly liberal and critical of Clinton, the results aren't that surprising, but will this extreme unpopularity with the base affect her standing with the general public?  
• Internet analyst William Beutler discovered that the presidential candidates are using Google keywords to advertise against their opponents names (Jeff Jarvis made the same discovery last week).  While Jarvis produced a somewhat convoluted chart showing who bought words against who, Beutler lays it out a bit more clearly.   Perhaps more interestingly, he also lists companies and non-profits that are associating themselves with the candidates' names.      
• Sameera Righton is a new blogger writing about the presidential race, though she's not interested in the candidates as much as she's interested in... their kids.  In fact, Righton isn't actually a blogger at all, or even a real person.  She's a fictional character created by author Mitali Perkins for her book First Daughter.  Although the blog is PR creation in support of the book, it's kind of interesting to read about the race through the eyes of a young girl, even if she doesn't actually exist. 

The Candidates on the Web

• Seven Democratic candidates will participate tonight in a virtual town hall hosted by MoveOn.org.  According to the Boston Globe, "About 10,000 MoveOn members are expected to gather in about 950 living rooms around the country to listen to the event."  It starts at 7pm and will be streamed live on MoveOn's web site and on the Air America radio network.  

In Case You Missed It...

PdF2007 News: Phil de Vellis is Coming, and Other Highlights
We're hard at work pulling together this year's fourth annual Personal Democracy Forum conference, which will be taking place this May 18 at Pace University in NYC along with a participant-driven unConference on the 19th, and we're pleased to share with you the emerging schedule for the main day.  Trust us, it's going to be an unprecedented gathering of the techno-politico-rati!