The Web on the Candidates

OpenSecrets.org has built an amazing Flash tool that graphically represents the links between the top five contributors to presidential campaigns and the candidates. The candidate and donor names are featured in bubbles, and when you click on, say, Mitt Romney's bubble, you'll see his top five donors (Goldman Sachs, Bain Capital, HIG Capital, Kirkland & Ellis, Marriott International). Click on the Goldman Sachs bubble and you'll see who they've contributed to (Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, and Barack Obama) and on and on... [via epolitics]

Unbeknownst to most followers of the candidates, John McCain is a huge Beach Boys fan. He recently displayed his love for the '60s group by singing his favorite song, "Bomb Iran," at a recent campaign stop. No, I'm kidding! He was actually asked by a supporter how he would deal with the threat of Iran, and he nervously laughed and said, "You know that old Beach Boys song 'Bomb Iran?'" and proceeded to sing "Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran..." Now, inevitably, the clip is on YouTube, and in the YouTube era it could be a pretty damning document. AirCongress has more, including an odd statement from Arizona Rep. John Shadegg, who came to McCain's defense.

This time tomorrow, Iran may have a new president-elect. The polls opened just over an hour ago, and if you're awake, you can get tech-related updates on Twitter via @Iran09:

Mousavi's #election site had been under DDOS attack last night from #iran gov.

SMS system is still down in #iran, two hours before the #election

If you happen to be in Iran, a few of us Americans are requesting stories about your experience: Andrew Sullivan has asked his readers to send him "first-hand accounts of campaigning and voting so Dish readers can get a more concrete sense of what the mood is," while the New York Times' Lede blog has a form that lets users submit pictures and videos from the polls. Both sites will post the submissions later for all to see.

"Mock not," pleaded blogger Andrew Sullivan as he posted an instaclassic of hyperbole, "The Revolution Will Be Twittered" in praise of Iranian supporters of Mir Hussein Moussavi who took the streets and - in some cases - used the short-form blogging services to post about the scene in Tehran.

Mock on, says I.

There is something like digital catnip on the breakfast bar for western politicogeeks in the story of Iran's disputed election and the ensuing power struggle roiling the Middle East's largest theocracy. Anything that suggests that some of the tools and tricks adopted among the wired, iPhone-wielding politically active classes in the United States may be used to - dramatic pause - start a revolution in one of the world's most dangerous countries carries the potency of a synthetic narcotic injected into the great XML vein of the Internet...

Around this time yesterday, I, along with countless others, tried to bring down the Web sites of Iran's information and justice ministries, and state-sponsored media outlets. The idea was to silence the pro-Ahmadenijad, anti-dissent messages coming from these outlets, and in so doing, strengthen the opposition protests in Tehran.

You didn't have to be computer smart to take part: a developer in San Francisco had set up a push-button tool that would, upon your click, immediately start bombarding 10 Web sites with requests. I clicked Start, and in the 10 little boxes below, I could see the pages load and reload. About half of them were already down.

This was exhilarating. The goal was to promote democracy, and I could actually watch as it happened. Empowering.

But there's more to it than that. I'm conflicted about the virtue of this idea. I'm still trying to sort out my thoughts about what happened, but I know that we will be talking about yesterday morning for years to come. We turned our collective power and outrage into a serious weapon that we could use at our will, without ever having to feel the consequences. We practiced distributed, citizen-based warfare. That is frightening. Here is how my thinking evolved throughout the day:

The role of social media in Iran, the seeming insatiable hunger to declare the events there a Twitter/Not Twitter Revolution, and the validity of assumptions about the power of technology to overthrow governments (or at least get votes recounted) has been much covered in all manner of press this week. Much covered. Much much covered. What follows is an attempt to condense that frankly overwhelming flow of news and commentary into a slightly more manageable stream of Iran-related and Iran-related-related information...

The events taking place in Iran for the past three weeks have made me thinking about this topic. Would the situation in Iran been different if access to the internet was part of the UN's Declaration of Human Rights?

In the tumultuous days after the Iranian election, we turned to the internet for a moment-by-moment account of events on the ground -- and wondered how all of this would affect the ultimate outcome.

Supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi used the internet to campaign and organize -- but the Iranian government also used technology to its advantage.

For all of the potential of the internet to change political communications, is technology changing the fundamental nature of power?

Can the keyboard ever win against the barrel of a gun?

Fresh off her lunchtime session on the topic at PdF 2009, Katrin Verclas, co-founder and editor of MobileActive.org, will share share insights of Iranians' and our experience of this and other controversial elections through social media.

Thursday, July 9th at the PdF Network
Social Media in Crisis: Lessons from the Iran Election Aftermath

RSVP here.

And we’ve added a whole slew of upcoming calls:

July 23 | Forging Alliances Online: How MomsRising Built a Versatile Activist Force | Rosalyn Lemieux, Fission Strategy

Aug 6 | Journalists and Bloggers: Navigating the Changing Media Landscape | Scott Rosenberg, co-founder Salon.com & author of "Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters"

Sept 10 | How to Harness Changes in African American Participation Online | Cheryl Contee, Fission Strategy & JackandJillPolitics.com

Sept 24 | Measuring Online Advocacy & Fundraising: Learnings from the 2009 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study | Marc Ruben & Karen Matheson, M+R Strategic Services

Oct 8 | Thirty Staffers and No Office: How to Make the Virtual Organization Work, the MoveOn Model | Ilyse Hogue, MoveOn.org

Oct 22 | Mobile Volunteers: How to Harness Microvolunteering for Your Cause | Jacob Colker, The Extraordinaries

Dec 3 | A $10 Challenge Turns into $25 Million: The "Nothing But Nets" Case Study | Shannon Raybold, UN Foundation

Missed a call? Listen to a podcast of any one of our previous calls and learn about how to Google for votes, fundraising and organizing through Twitter, evaluating returns on investment in social media, how to pitch (and not pitch) a political blogger, building a social network, longtail nanotargeting, and more.