Archive: Category: TechPresident

The latest news on the Democratic fundraising front is this: * The Clinton campaign announced today that, since Super Tuesday, it had raised $10 million online from more than 100,000 donors. Campaign internet director Peter Daou said in a press release that ""This is a major development in this race. Hillary has always had millions of strong supporters nationwide -- now those supporters are beginning to give online in large numbers." I asked him this afternoon if these were first-time or repeat donors, and he told me, "Virtually all of it is from new donors." * Late yesterday, Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton put out word that "We’ve raised well more than the Clinton campaign this month but more importantly...

The online fundraising war between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has turned into a daily battle of the press releases, and it's hard to say for sure what the numbers truly mean. Late yesterday, in response to Obama's $7.6 million haul post Super Tuesday, Clinton internet director Peter Daou put out word that Hillary had raised more than $9 million online since that day. Posting on Daily Kos, he wrote: I wanted to give you an update on the campaign's fundraising over the past 72 hours. The day after Super Tuesday, we set a goal of $3 million in 3 days, but broke through that target in less than 24 hours, raising over $4 million in the first day. We then raised the goal...

The Web on the Candidates * Mike Connery of FutureMajority.com (and a member of the techPresident blogger family) digs into the youth turnout numbers from CIRCLE that I cited here yesterday, and produces two interesting assertions. First, that based on current youth turnout in the primaries, the Democratic advantage among young voters "is huge and growing." He projects the gap will rise from a 54-45% split D-R in 2004 to 65-34% in 2008. He also notes that on the Republican side, Mike Huckabee appears to be winning the largest share of the youth vote. * danah boyd isn't the only California voter who is wondering whether her vote got counted last Tuesday. There are reports that in LA along, 94,000 independent voters...

Josh is away at a conference in Italy, so yours truly is filling in for him. If you miss his sardonic musings about these pearls of pop culture, don't worry, he'll be back next week. And with no further ado, here are our favorite political videos of the week: Number 8: "Corruption" (by the Mike Gravel campaign) He may no longer appear to be campaigning since he's been excluded from the debates, but Mike Gravel is still running, at least in the land of multimedia. Here is his team's latest effort, a slap at the whole money-drenched presidential campaign finance system. Only 200 views so far. Something tells us Gravel is going to keep running, and not as a Democrat, all the...

The Web on the Candidates * As it becomes more likely that the Democratic nomination will be decided by the so-called superdelegates, the folks at Politicalbase are building out a detailed list on their wiki, and their tech team is building a tool that will allow anyone to send an email to all 796 of them, Mark Nickolas, their managing editor, told techPresident. He added, "Of course, getting good e-mails for all 796 is one of our top goals right now, as well." * Declan McCullagh reports that in Santa Clara County, the heart of Silicon Valley, Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama by 54.8% to 39.3% of the vote, nearly double her statewide margin. Writing on CNet, he argues that for all...

I just got back home from a quick business trip to Israel, and literally arrived at JFK at 6am this morning to learn all of the results from the Uber-Tuesday primaries. So forgive me if this post seems like it was written at 35,000 feet. But I think if we take a step back from the state-by-state results and look at the broader picture, I think a bold statement is in order. If it were not for the internet, and all the campaign- and voter-generated activism that it has enabled, Hillary Clinton would already be the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee, and Barack Obama or another reform-minded candidate would be trailing badly. (On the Republican side, it's harder to make such a...

Hugh Atkin, who made the "Changes" video we highlighted last Friday, mashing up the David Bowie song with all the candidates talking about "change," has a follow-up that's incredible: a mash-up of Senator Hillary Clinton's now famous emotional moment just before the New Hampshire with, get this, Tom Cruise talking about his passion for Scientology. The juxtapositions in their two monologues are absolutely eerie, and you'll enjoy the faux "Mission Impossible" guitar riff in the background too. "Clinton and Cruise - On the campaign trail" currently has just over 5,000 views, but Atkin's previous effort zoomed from just 6,000 when we cited it in our top videos of the week on Friday to more than 121,000 today. Atkin is a 23-year-old...

Hearty congratulations are in order for Julie Barko Germany, who has just been officially named the new director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet (IPDI) at George Washington University. Julie has been deputy director of IPDI since 2003 and acting director since its longtime leader Carol Darr stepped down last summer. IPDI sponsors the annual Politics Online conference in DC, which is taking place March 4-5 this year. I've been watching the conference come together and it looks like Julie and her team are pulling together a really stimulating mix of speakers and panels. Topics include: "Pervasive Politics: How Ubiquitous Technology will Change Politics & Government," "Long Tail Politics: How the Niche is Revolutionizing Politics," "User-Generated Content: Threat...

[Here's an excerpt of my and Andrew Rasiej's latest column in the Politico.com.] The way it looks now, there is a strong possibility that both the Democratic and Republican nomination contests are not going to be resolved with a quick knockout blow that gives one contender in either party the momentum to force his or her opponents to drop out. Instead, we are heading into territory not charted in modern political times, with the leading contenders on a long slog toward the conventions — and in need of new infusions of money and volunteers to help them chase down voters and, ultimately, delegates. We’ve watched the race closely, and while the presidential campaigns are all investing resources in well-designed websites, online fundraising and...

Looks like President Bush or one of his ghost-writers had time to post some "Trip Notes From the Middle East" that are almost bloggish in their style. Now we know who picks out the president's suits and ties. (Hat tips to Steve Klein and Amy Gahran.)...