CivicActions

The LCV is raising money to run two advertisements for the presidential race. The ads don't favor any particular candidate, rather aim to raise possibly the most important issue facing American's today: How will we change our country's policies to preserve the habitability of our planet for future generations.

TechPresident features a few posts from Micah Sifry on the recent Obama MySpace snafu. The short of it is this: volunteer makes a Barak Obama MySpace profile in 2004. Over time that profile grows to 160k friends. The volunteer gives freely of his time doing it (by his account 5 to 10 hours a day since the beginning of the year). The Obama campaign decides they want control, ask the volunteer how much he'd like to be compensated.

On saturday I attended RootsCampNYC, and unconference dedicated to debriefing on the elections with a decidedly technological flavor. I shot some video with a Samsung SC-210 digital video camera (that I am returning tomorrow because it doesn't play well with Mac despite what the box says.) The video above is a short interview with Sanford Dickert. I've got a few more videos up on YouTube.

Zephyr Teachout has a great op-ed in the Washington Post today about the future of campaigning.

She talks about some interesting ideas like mobile political affinity software, political accountability software and political placement as ways of reaching voters in '08.

Thanks to the Berkman Center newsletter for pointing this one out.

Couldn't be said better than a screenshot...

Thanks.

The DCCC launched a cool website that visually displays the links between corrupt republicans. Have any friends or family who are Republican voters? or who might be wavering? Send them this link.

In other news, last night I saw Bil Clinton stumping for Patricia Madrid for New Mexico's First Congressional District. The man is genius. He spoke articulately for nearly 40 minutes without notes. He is a rock star.

Evolve Strategies has developed a Web-based “widget� to collect and report election incidents that may require voter protection intervention.

VoterStory.org is an open-source utility that can be placed on any website to feed data into a central database, which in turn alerts voter protection groups each time a new incident is reported in their district.

The votes are in and the winning Flunk Arnold video is "How to Solve a Financial Crisis" by CSU Sacramento student Miguel Francis.

The video will appear statewide as an ad during the Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight, November 2, 2006, at 11 P.M. on Comedy Central. Check to see what cable operators are running the ad in your area.

Thank you to everybody who submitted videos, websites and voted for their favorites. You have helped start a netroots revolution.

Today MAPLight.org unveiled a pioneering database that lays bare the connection between money and votes in California politics.

http://www.maplight.org

The MAPLight.org website combines information from the Official California Legislative Information website, which contains the official text of each bill and how each legislator voted, and the Institute on Money in State Politics, a national nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to accurate, comprehensive and unbiased documentation and research on campaign finance.

MAPLight.org allows journalists and citizens to answer questions such as: