We noted a while back the curious case of an anti-Sarah Palin email sent by two New York women to 40-odd friends that attracted a reported 150,000 responses. That humble missive has evolved into a multimedia campaign.; In these final days, the presidential campaigns are scrambling to reach out to undecideds or soft supporters and convert them into votes; Now that Obama has won -- the WebMarketing Association's Web Award for the better of the two candidates' websites, of course -- thoughts are turning to how a President Obama would use his much-vaunted Internet savvy to actually govern; and a good deal more.

Out of the minds of Google's Creative Lab's, where Googlers go to whip up the future, comes VoteHour.org. CEOs from eBay's John Donahoe to KPMG's Tim Flynn to the Donald himself urge their minions to take an hour from their work day to go vote; What's missing from GOP.com?, asks Mother Jones' Jonathan Stein. The answer is: a guy by the name of John McCain; Gartner Research group is out with a fascinating look at the state of government "social computing," which includes everything from social networks to collaborative web tools; and quite a bit more.

It's the story of a scrappy bootstrapped organization thinking it can take on the big boys through grit, long hours, and some of the neatest tools the Internet's ever dreamed up. Nope, it's not the story of Shawn Fanning and Napster or Jeff Bezos at Amazon.com. It's the rise and presidency of Barack Obama, says the New York Times David Carr; Of course, it's still possible to look at this election and see it as simply the triumph of a uniquely able politician, his crafty band of savant strategists, and a favorable political climate. Indeed, the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza writes a 7,000-word "How Obama Won" piece with hardly a mention of the Internet; The Washington Post's Shailagh Murray and Matthew Mosk suggest that the Obama White House will have an even "more ambitious" version of the campaign's 95-member new media department; and a good deal more.

Dozens of senior web managers spanning federal agencies from USDA to HUD to NASA to EPA to ASDF (okay, we made that last one up) have penned a useful white paper with recommendations for the next presidential administration...This latest and last video installment of the life and times of Barney, the White House dog, is truly something to behold. The Bush family gathers to celebrate Christmas in this stilted and scripted piece, and you have to get a load of the President acting out some intentionally goofy lines, like when he admonishes his pet to quit "nappin' to the finish"...If you ever get the question from colleagues, allies, or clients, "We want to get all web 2.0 up in this piece. Hmm, where do we start?," then we've got something for you...and more.

Joining the growing list of President-elect Barack Obama's experiments in interactivity is the Citizen's Briefing Book...Politico's Ben Smith points us to what looks like a new webisode of "The West Wing," but what turns out to be a new seven-minute video in which key soon-to-be Obama Administration figures make the case for the President-elect's stimulus package...Harvard's Elizabeth Warren, the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel overseeing how the Treasury Department's handles the Troubled Asset Relief Program, thinks Henry Paulson et al is guilty of delivering "non-answers."How do we know those juicy details? She said so, in a YouTube video posted to a new and improved cops.senate.gov site...and more.

• The LA Times' Peter Wallsten serves up what at first glance looks like some juicy details on what evolution of Barack Obama's campaign organization will look like once he puts his hand on the Bible Tuesday. Dig into it a bit, though, and it starts to read a lot like a super-charged version of the 50 State Strategy that Howard Dean pioneered at the DNC...
• In retrospect, writes Media Channel's Danny Schechter, we all failed to appreciate how much the Obama campaign created its "own media apparatus," one that shifted the balance of power between the candidate and the press...
• The White House Office of Drug Control Policy might be on Twitter, but they're having a tougher time taking to Facebook...
• And much more.

• To some extent, this weekend was the semester's first exam for Organizing for America. So, how'd the new organization, an outgrowth of the Obama campaign, perform? Depends who you ask...
• The White House's nameless, faceless blogger responds to criticisms about the new administration's breaking of its five-day legislative review period pledge. In short, the message is 'We're working on it'...
• As a supposed fix for "viruses and malware," the Maryland General Assembly has taken to blocking Facebook and My Space...
• Audio cuts of some of the more, um, colloquial passages from Obama's recording of his "Dreams From My Father" are now bopping around the web...
• And more.

We came, we saw, we ate slightly frightening amounts of Pizza Boli. Transparency Camp '09 happened in Washington DC this weekend. At any given moment, you could step out in the hallway of GW's Media and Public Affairs Building and see a Library of Congress web dude chatting up an advocate for persistent legislative tagging...who's standing next to GSA's web director...who's chatting with Tim O'Reilly...who just finished a conversation with a DHS procurement guru...who spent the morning session brainstorming with the guy who built StimulusWatch...who spent breakfast kibitzing with Recovery.gov's lead architect...who's sneaking away to whiteboard with an open-source advocate...who will spend the afternoon deliberating with the author of Obama's Open Government Directive...who just shared ideas with the new New York Senate CIO...so on and so forth. Sure, for an open-government event, the un-conference snuck under the radar of many people who might have liked to attend. And there's a good chance that you could have counted on two hands the number of John McCain voters in the 300-plus person crowd.

But after two days of brainstorming and back-and-forth, you might be forgiven for looking upon the scene and indulging in some grand thoughts like Craig Newmark's reflection that you were "watch[ing] actual big history being made in real-time" -- or at least signs that a certain transparency-driven model of governing was getting much closer to critical mass. (You Golden Bough fans out there might get a particular kick out of the fact that Transparency Camp kick-off was held in the very same auditorium where the Carville/Novak/Begala/Carlson show Crossfire was filmed.)

I'll point you to roundups and recaps by attendees as they get written, but for now you might like to dip into the Twitter stream. Or, if time is of the essence, check out this tweet word cloud. A Google Group has been established to keep conversations going. And most importantly, here's where you can order commemorative stickers. Next up, in slightly different fashion, is Government 2.0 Camp later this month. Video after the jump.

(Photo credit: kenyaoa)

Hillary Clinton has been talking up online diplomacy, as Micah Sifry and Nancy Scola reported in this space, and her husband is getting in on the act, too.