The Web on the Candidates

• OpenSecrets.org has just released first-quarter expenditure numbers for all of the candidates, and while it would take weeks to analyze the amount of data they've released, Chris Bowers has a good analysis going. Barack Obama spent more than the others in almost all of the categories, and he far and away spent the most on "Internet Media" -- $299,000 -- which, as Bowers notes, is five times more than the rest of the field combined.
• Joe Klein is frustrated that smart political blogging "is being drowned out by a fierce, bullying, often witless tone of intolerance that has overtaken the left-wing sector of the blogosphere," and he points to the "spitballs" aimed at Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for their positions on the Iraq war as evidence. "Despite their votes, each of those politicians believes the war must be funded," he writes, explaining that only voted against the recent Iraq resolution because they were bullied by anti-war bloggers (the Netroots?). This, Klein says, its dangerous because Democratic candidates are becoming beholden to the base in the same way that the GOP embraced conservative radio in the '90s. (via Election Geek)
• This week CNN's Political Ticker blog opened up to reader comments, and have started receiving thousands of comments, which is great for the site. But it's now challenged with managing an onslaught of pro-Ron Paul comments to the point that it had to temporarily take down its "Who Won the GOP Debate" poll. Meanwhile, Wonkette, which is always tickled at the site of those "citizens" being "active" online, has posted its favorite comments from the 777 that were posted beneath the CNN article.
• James Kotecki, who's dorm-room interviews we've been missing immensely, is back with an interview with Mike Huckabee. The interview takes place "on location," though we don't actually where that is; James points to the painting behind him and says they're in the great American west; I'll take his word for it.

The Candidates on the Web

• The John Edwards campaign must know about my passion for cool fundraising graphics. Bill Richardson's hot pepper is still my favorite, though others have popped up with updated versions of Howard Dean's baseball bat. Now the Edwards campaign has introduced a candle graphic to document this week's birthday-focused fundraising drive. Stripes on the candle magically appear as the page loads to show how much money has been raised so far. Simple pleasures.

In Case You Missed It...

Ruby Sinreich documents her encounter with Mike Gravel's official Second Life space.

Alan Rosenblatt describes John Edwards' multi-faceted used of RSS feeds, with feeds for every piece of content including his events calendar.