We’re about to launch a new PDF blog on the 2008 presidential campaign that will focus on how the candidates are using the web, and vice versa, how voter-generated content is affecting the campaigns. One feature of the blog will be a daily digest, out each morning, that reports the latest news in both categories. What follows is a taste; stay tuned for launch details.

- The Editors

Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) launches his presidential bid this morning and according to Beth Fouhy of the Associated Press, the longtime senator will announce his candidacy via online video to supporters.

While in Iowa this weekend, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) was caught on microphone singing the national anthem out of tune, reports the New York Times' Patrick Healy. The new media that sparked a "conversation" about her announcement message quickly turned on her as the video made it to YouTube within hours.

TPMCafe's Election Central has video highlights from six possible Democratic presidential hopefuls from the Democratic National Committee's Winter Meeting in Washington, D.C. Among the official, exploring, or rumored candidates: Senators Christopher Dodd (CT), Hillary Clinton (NY), Barack Obama (IL), John Edwards (NC), Congressman Dennis Kucinich (OH) and retired General Wes Clark (AR). ABC's Political Punch has more, including a podcast from the DNC meeting.

Obama (D-IL) drew over "3,000 mostly sign-waving students" in Virginia, notes New York Times political blogger, Sarah Wheaton. The event was sponsored by the George Mason University chapter of Students for Barack Obama, a national, student-based grassroots organization. The group used Facebook, a social networking favorite among college students, to handle RSVPs for the February 2 appearance. More from the Associated Press here.

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A Rightwingnews.com poll suggests that Duncan Hunter has gained significant new support among the conservative netroots. Newt Gingrich was the most popular potential candidate, followed by Hunter and Mitt Romney. Chuck Hagel, George Pataki, and John McCain were very unpopular among the 230 participants in the poll.

The Politico and MSNBC are sponsoring the first GOP debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, CA on May 3. It will be broadcast online on the Politico's web site, where viewers can submit questions to the candidates.

Ben Smith of The Politico reports that a new Hillary-obsessed website, JustHillary.com ('It's All About Her"), has launched. It chronicles its editor's obsession with Clinton and, by extension, the media's obsession as well. It features links to Hillary-centric news articles, editorials, blog posts, YouTube videos, and looks like it was designed in 1997.

A straw poll conducted by GOP Bloggers has Rudy Giuliani at the top of the heap at 32.2%, over 8% higher than Newt Gingrich, the runner-up. Another interesting metric is the "candidate acceptability" poll, in which Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel has a -67% approval rating, probably stemming from his break with President Bush on Iraq.

The Web on the Candidates

• AbsentCongress.org is keeping tabs on the voting records of 2008 presidential candidates in the Senate. According to the site, Sam Brownback has missed more than half of his Senate roll call votes. Compare that to Hillary Clinton and John McCain, who have been present for 94.87% of their votes.
• It's tapioca time: Jeff Jarvis laments the threat to conversation signaled by the Edwards blogger resignations: "Now every blogger hired by every campaign — in any position — will have their writing scanned for anything that could offend anyone. Tapioca time."

The Web on the Candidates

"If the liberal blogs want to understand why so few people outside their narrow echo chamber take them seriously, and what it will take to gain the broader credibility they crave, they should look no further than their handling of the recent flap over John Edwards’ foul-mouthed blogger hires," says Dan Gerstein in the Politico.

Patrick Ruffini calls John Edwards' site a "mess," in part because, as Todd Ziegler notes, there are icons for and links to 24 social news/social networking sites. "I get it. The Edwards campaign is really into the whole Web 2.0 thing. Message delivered. I understand the power of these networks. I do. But 24 accounts? This just strikes me as sort of ridiculous," Ziegler says. Ruffini says there's also too much text on the home page: "A homepage should be made for scanning, so a big graphic with your message of the day, with icons and 5-6 word descriptions of your key features is what works best."

The Web on the Candidates

Danny Glover at AirCongress posted a 45-minute video (it's hosted on YouTube; since Google owns it, they made an exception for the 10-minute video length rule) of Hillary Clinton speaking to with Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the Google headquarters last week. According to the Mercury News, Clinton first discussed policy issues with Google execs before speaking before a crowd of 200 Google employees. Although Bill Clinton enjoyed high popularity in Silicon Valley, Hillary still needs to work for their support. "She can draw on what Bill Clinton meant to the valley; it's definitely an asset. But I don't think it's immediately or fully transferable," says Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone. [via AirCongress]

Chris Cilliza of the Washington Post takes a look at the battle for netroots support among Democrats and sees that, unlike 2004 when the nascent movement supported Howard Dean, "the support of the netroots is less unified this time around." His three measures of support? The fundraising numbers on Act Blue (John Edwards leads the pack with over $900,000 raised), the DailyKos monthly poll (Edwards is first place with 26; Obama trails at 25 percent), and... techPresident, who provides the MySpace stats (Obama's on top).

The Web on the Candidates

The search for parkridge47: It's been two weeks since techPresident's Micah Sifry first posted his email exchange with "parkridge47," creator of the Obama/Clinton "Vote Different" video, but the search for his or her true identity continues. In the video's wake, Micah and PDF co-founder Andrew Rasiej have been quoted and interviewed all over the place, including CNN, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Chicago Sun-Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Townhall.com.

Jeff Jarvis has an idea: let's videotape ourselves asking questions of the presidential candidates, upload them to YouTube, and tag them PREZCONFERENCE. "This way, we’ll see which questions the candidates answer and which they don’t. In the UK, Conservative leader David Cameron answers five questions a week, three of them selected by the voters. We need to hear our candidates answer our questions here." He offers five examples of such videos, taken at at the VON conference at San Jose.