Quick Hits — October 16, 2008

• Local California GOP Site Endorses E-mail Smears, Said ‘Waterboard Obama’.
• Watching Joe The Plumber on Google Trends.
• You Got Mail? Analysis Shows That Sometimes, McCain’s Supporters Don’t. McCain’s deliverability issues.
• GOP, McCain Appear To Dominate Robocall War. One battleground Dems should happily cede.
• ‘Gossip Girl’ Stars Featured in New MoveOn Ad.
• Campaign Ads Sapping Market Confidence. Can we vote now?
• Stifled by Copyright, McCain Asks YouTube to Consider Fair Use. YouTube replies, and I quote, Pffffffffffffffffffft.
• Obama Campaign Battles Voting Misinformation Online.
• Underground Whisper Campaign Could Undermine McCain.
• Crowdsourced Smearbusting.
• Mayhem at a conservative magazine. Buckley overboard!
• Obama camp moving staff out of Michigan ’cause they’re not needed, while McCain may be abandoning Wisconsin and the RNC may be abandoning McCain. Meanwhile, McCain’s little brother throws a tantrum, via email.
• Twitter on Advocacy, plus A Think Tank’s Effective Use of Twitter for the Presidential Debates.
• Obama Across America: Seeing the Big Picture. Using the web to visualize the ground game.
• Government so broke we can’t afford email anymore.
• Candidate Supporters’ Use of Gadgets as Symbols Reveal Power of Brands.
• McCain Hiring Paid Canvassers in Florida. Email announcement, natch.
• Outside Groups Step Up Expenditures.
• Strategy videos as supporter motivators.
• After School Programs, Social Networking and CRM.
• Enough Already With Political Categories Like “White Women”. Or, why Grace Slick is not Tricia Nixon Cox.
• Calling McCain voters: “Yes, ‘Eleventh Hour’ is sort of like a cross between ‘CSI: Miami’ and ‘Touched by an Angel,’ if you can wrap your head around that unholy duo.”
• Giant cyclones at Saturn’s poles create swirl of mystery.
• Search Advertising’s Scalability Problems.
• Revealing Repub fundraising email from Michigan.
• PBS wants you to video your voting experience, while Wired wants you to report your voting problems on their site.
• Now Blogging, in This Corner… (hint: he’s a former McCain strategist).
• Using Google Analytics to Track a Nonprofit Website (Part 1).
• Congressional Sites Should Employ Interactive Tools.
• Video Annual Reports: Tips for Nonprofits Who Want to Try It.
• Three Pros Talk Web Strategy for Foundations Big and Small. Via Nonprofit Marketing.
• 25 Not-Very-Technical Things Journalists Should Understand in 2008.
• And we’ll take it out on this note: Yes We Carve! Pumpkin extremism, via Bob Brigham.

– cpd