You don’t have to be a PR pro to get the blogosphere talking about your candidate or your issue. This Thursday from 1-2pm EST on April 30th, two of today’s most prominent political bloggers, Ben Smith and Ana Marie Cox, will let us in on “How to Pitch (and Not Pitch) a Political Blogger.”

We're pleased to announce a first for the Internet Election of 2008: Starting tonight, a designated representative of both of the major presidential campaigns are going to participate in a free-wheeling debate on technology and government, moderated by Time magazine blogger Ana Marie Cox and channeled via Twitter.

The McCain campaign will be represented by Liz Mair, the online communications director of the Republican National Committee. The Obama campaign will be represented by Mike Nelson, a professor at Georgetown University who served in the Clinton White House under Vice President Gore on tech policy issues.

The debate is an initiative of Personal Democracy Forum and is being launched in tandem with next week's annual PdF conference, which is taking place Monday and Tuesday at Rose Hall in NYC.