"YOUR INTERNET CAMPAIGN TIP SHEET"

Ari Melber (The Nation):

I think people get tired of hearing about Internet politics because insignificant fads draw so much hype. But as the primaries heat up, it's clear that several web-driven efforts are making a huge impact. Here's a tip sheet:

Obama just raised over $4 million online since this weekend's South Carolina victory. Add that to the million dollars a day he pulled in for the first week of January, and it's clear that grassroots donors are enabling the long, "delegate hunt" primary we keep hearing about. It's a direct, tangible rebuttal to the media elite primary, which aims to prematurely declare a winner based on momentum. (Check out Timothy Noah's excellent new column on those media "momentucrats.")

Clinton is aggressively trying to make up ground with the MySpace vote. She is the only Democratic presidential candidate committed for this weekend's MySpace-MTV "Super Dialogue," (Obama and Edwards participated in earlier MySpace events). These forums reach young voters with highly integrated platform coverage, from social networks to cable TV to cell phones to the plain old AP Online Video Network. MySpace spokesperson Cecilia Fan says the event is broadcast live on MTV and MTV2, streamed live on MySpace and MTV's website, packaged for the AP network, (which reaches up to 600 media outlets in Super Tuesday states alone), broadcast on radio stations affiliated with MTV, XM and AP, and translated into Spanish for streaming on LaVibra.com. You can also get it on your cell phone through MTV Mobile, or amble down to Times Square to watch it on the big screen.

Activists are using a new, open source web campaign to expose companies that are faking open source web campaigns. You read that right. Some companies have seized on web organizing to create fake "astroturf" groups or pose as citizen journalists to advance corporate PR. Today those dogged Wisconsin organizers at the Center for Media and Democracy launched a new wiki-powered activist site to expose such front operations, called Full Frontal Scrutiny.

Voters still want to hear from the candidates, even if it means turning off the TV. One of the biggest, most under-reported developments in this campaign is the unprecedented audience for Obama's speeches on YouTube. While the national media covers polls, strategy, gaffes and the occasional comment from a candidate's spouse, millions of people are flocking to YouTube to hear directly from a candidate. Obama's newest speech with Ted Kennedy is already doing very well. (I've covered the phenomenon in this space before, and I'll do it as long as viewers keep breaking these records.)

Activists are effectively using the web to get Katrina back on the agenda. An alliance of netroots activists, black organizers at ColorofChange, ACORN, the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project (and others) are directing people to demand that moderators finally ask the candidates about Katrina at the upcoming debates. They have already made Katrina the top ranked question for the upcoming CNN/Politico/LA Times Democratic Debate. That's a big deal. Jeffrey Buchanan of the RFK Memorial tells The Nation:

Moderators or questioners from the debate hosts like CNN, ABC, Fox News and NBC/MSNBC have not asked the Republican Presidential candidates a single question through 15 debates about what they would do to rebuild Gulf Coast communities and address the region's current infrastructure crisis. Democratic debates have not done much better, devoting a fraction of a percentage of their debates to the topic... Still the networks have pushed the issue to the side during the debates, the time when the media is supposed to ask the Presidential candidates tough questions about how they would act as President on issues that matter to voters.

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