I'm here at the Politics Online conference in Washington, D.C., and I'm listening to Eliot Schrage, Google VP of Global Communications, talk about Google's approach to politics ("we want to make all of the world's information available to everyone. That's political -- knowledge is power") and it's plans for the 2008 election. After running through what YouTube/Google contributes to the political process -- using videos of Hillary Clinton singing out of tune, John Edwards playing with his hair, and a few jokey videos about children running for president -- he said that Google will be setting up a special team to help campaigns use Google products during the 2008 campaign.

So, I wrote Danny Glover a note this morning about his coverage of the brouhaha online over John Edwards' hiring of Pandagon blogger Amanda Marcotte to be his campaign blog-master. (If you think this controversy isn't roiling the political blogosphere, just take a look at this over-the-top performance by A-list rightwing blogger Michele Malkin). I got a reply within minutes from Danny.

Jake Tapper, senior national correspondent for ABC News, has a series of web videos outlining the historical racial insensitivities of presidential aspirant, Senator Joe Biden (D-DE).

Copies of Senator Hillary Clinton's (D-NY) "I'm in" video has appeared on YouTube and, collectively, amassed over 7,100 views, according to Donna Bogatin at ZDNet. However, the official upload, Bogatin writes, is not a "viral video sensation," registering only 550 views and eight subscribers to the "hillarydotcom" channel.

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.

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

When Hillary Clinton announced she was running for president in an online video, it was a gesture towards the undeniable fact that candidates must make a minimal effort online, and must at the very least pay lip service to the netroots and the political blogosphere. As David Weinberger recently pointed out, although Hillary calls her campaign a conversation, the execution actually suggests "a TV-style interview answering safe questions with safer answers."

Steve Garfield recently announced that, according to Jeremy Allaire from Brightcove, an up-and-coming challenger to YouTube, Barack Obama's video announcing his presidential exploratory committee received 140,000 hits on Tuesday, the day he announced. That's almost 40,000 more views than the total number of views of John Edwards' announcement video on YouTube.

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