Archive: Category: TechPresident

I guess this is a first for a major presidential candidate. Barack Obama has gone on the Huffington Post to post some comments addressing the controversy swirling around the (retiring) pastor of his church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. There's nothing particularly new about Obama's comments, nor is his post particularly bloggy. I wonder if he'll stay around to deal with HP's wild-west commenters....

The Web on the Candidates * The always terrific Mark Glaser has a great round-up on how "semi-pro journalism teams" are covering the presidential election in innovative and more personal ways. He focused on three valuable projects: PurpleStates.tv, which has five citizen journalists on its team; MTV's Street Team '08, which has a mobile journalist in every state; and Huffington Post's Off the Bus project, which boasts a whopping 1,800 contributors. Glaser pulls no punches and talks about the pluses and minuses of this approach, but if you're looking for a great entry-point to the conversation and mid-term review of these experiments, start here. * Mike Lux at OpenLeft points to an interesting new effort by, Don Ringe, a veteran Republican media...

It seems like this was the week of dueling racial memes, with controversy swirling around videos of former Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, a Clinton backer, and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the pastor of Obama's church, and lots of commentary by interested bystanders. We'll get to those, but first some lighter fare. The Jack Nicholson endorsement of Hillary Clinton seems to be doing pretty well for her, with well over 120,000 views on the campaign's YouTube channel and tens of thousands elsewhere (even though it's basically just audio of a radio interview. It inspired this pastiche of movie clips (ending with Nicholson saying he approves this message), which has drawn a stunning 1.4 million views. But Nicholson's body of work is so rich, it was...

I guess it's MoveOn day here at techPres. The giant e-group has just reached into its 2004 playbook and announced an "Obama in 30 Seconds" contest for video makers. The reason? "The race isn't over, and we've got to pull out all the stops to help him across the finish line," the group says. "Every day, political insiders and pundits tell Americans what to think about the presidential race. But now, it's YOUR turn to take the megaphone. We want to run ads that are of the people, by the people, and for the people. So consider making an ad." Here's how it will work: Anyone can design a 30 second ad about Obama between now and April 1, the public...

The Web on the Candidates * Republican consultant and all-around-web-guru Todd Ziegler has a fresh post up on the topic of "Technologies that will impact the 2008 elections," and as usual the whole thing is worth reading. He mercilessly grades himself on the predictions he made a year ago, and adds a few fresh ones to the mix. I am with him on the coming impact of live video online, as well as the rising power of Twitter enabled self-organizing crowds at events (watch out Denver and Minneapolis!). * It's not the same thing as a call-girl's MySpace page, but it sure is a sign of the times that you can also see former Romney media strategist Alex Castellanos' wishlist on Amazon....

Normally, I wouldn't take note of a job description, but this one from MoveOn.org Political Action piqued my interest. (And while they haven't yet posted it on our free job-board, you can check out some other cool positions there or list your own.) They're looking for an Electoral Organizing Tools Project Manager to work "on the development of cutting edge online organizing tools." Here are some excerpts from the job description, which lays out an ambitious but not unrealistic plan for the giant e-group, and hints at some significant upgrades in its integration of technology in its field organizing. Our plan to win back the White House in November relies on mobilizing 150,000 volunteers in a massive voter contact program...

A month ago, Mitt Romney folded his presidential campaign, which won 11 states primaries and caucuses, 4.2 million votes and 291 delegates. He also raised $105 million, including $42 million of his own money. What follows is an interview with Mindy Finn, his Director of eStrategy. We're pleased that after a long hiatus away on the campaign scrum, this marks Mindy's return to the techPresident fold. Q: Mitt Romney launched his campaign on January 3, 2007...

The Web on the Candidates * The presidential campaign is everywhere, including on your mobile phone. Over at RingTones08, the most popular ringtones that people have downloaded (for free!) to their phones are excerpts from the Yes We Can Obama song/video, the hilarious "Baby Got Barack" rap, and a Ron Paul reggae tune. RingTones08 bills itself as the "only free site for posting and sharing ringtones about the US election," and its founders, Jo Lee and Katrin Verclas, have hit on a great way to engage activists and new voters alike. We've mentioned this project before, but the site is no longer in beta, and it now includes new features like an easier to use process for submitting tones. * If you're...

The Web on the Candidates * John Heileman interviews former Edwards strategist Joe Trippi by instant messenger (so says the headline) in New York Magazine, but oddly, neither of them :>) or ;>) during the whole chat. Trippi repeats his now well-noted observation that "the Clinton campaign is the last top-down campaign on our side," but also observes that no matter what the medium used, Obama could be doing better with blue-collar Democrats. * The netroots left keeps gnawing on itself as the Obama-Clinton contest plays out, with MyDD ur-blogger Jerome Armstrong mocking the enthusiasms of pro-Obama voices like OpenLeft's Chris Bowers, and it's getting more than a little nasty. Over at FireDoglake, which has stayed officially neutral in the nomination fight,...

Justine Lam, the internet director of the Ron Paul campaign, just gave a really interesting summary of how and why Ron Paul succeeded on- and off-line. I can't possibly live-blog every speaker or session at Politics Online, but here are my notes on her talk. These are close to accurate quotations but best to treat them as paraphrases. Three reasons for Paul's online success: 1. His message was unique to the Republican field, and tapped into various constituencies that were otherwise unaddressed, at least on the Republican side. Duh. 2. We decided early on not to create a central social network on the campaign site, but instead saw the site as a hub pointing to other networks. We tried to make clear that...