Posted by Mike Dorning at 7:00 am CDT.

This election, Democratic presidential candidates are getting religion. And their web sites are starting to show it.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Saturday became the first Democratic presidential candidate to unveil a web site devoted to religious outreach. It includes a description of Obama's faith principles and testimonials from religious leaders, including his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright who says he supports Obama because "of his incarnated faith--his faith made alive in the flesh."

Former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) today unveiled his own web site themed on faith and moral leadership.

A spokesman for Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) said her campaign will have its own faith-oriented web site up soon.

Posted by David Lightman at 10 a.m. CDT

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama eked out a victory Thursday as the top choice of anti-war activists, as he won the MoveOn Town Hall vote with 27.87 percent of the total.

MoveOn, an activist group closely aligned with the Democratic party, hosted more than 1,000 events all over the nation, including several in Connecticut, Tuesday night. Candidates prerecorded short speeches detailing their positions on the Iraq war, and people were then invited to vote on the question, "Which candidate do you believe would be best able to lead the country out of Iraq?" Anyone who was a MoveOn member as of 7 p.m. Tuesday could vote.

The final tally:
Obama…27.87 percent.
2004 vice presidential candidate John Edwards, 24.84 percent.
Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, 17.18 percent.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, 12.26 percent.
New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, 10.7 percent.
Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr…6.19 percent.
Connecticut Sen. Christopher J. Dodd…1.05 percent.

Posted by Mike Dorning at 2:10 pm CDT.

Most of the major Democratic presidential candidates will be taking questions tonight on the Iraq War in a "virtual town meeting" that is billed as one of the largest and most ambitious online political forums.

Democratic presidential candidates John Edwards, Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd and Barack Obama (in that order) all will do brief phone question-and-answer sessions on their views about Iraq beginning at 6:00 pm CDT tonight.

Members of the liberal activist group MoveOn.org voted on the questions each candidate is to be asked from among more than 6,800 potential questions that members submitted.

Posted by Mike Dorning at 6:30 am CDT.

In a cyberspace equivalent of the town hall meetings that presidential candidates hold in Iowa and New Hampshire, campaigns are making use of non-political web sites to present their political messages through a virtual dialogue with voters.

Sen. Barack Obama has now joined the celebrities Leonardo DiCaprio, Oprah Winfrey and Al Gore in posing a question on Yahoo! Answers.

The web site permits users to pose a question that other users can answer.

The question that Obama posed: How can we engage more people in the democratic process?

Posted by Mike Dorning at 6:10 am CDT

The creator of a widely circulated viral web video portraying Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton as an Orwellian Big Brother was identified Wednesday as an employee of an Internet consulting firm that works for one of her opponents, Sen. Barack Obama.

The Obama campaign denied any involvement in the ad and the consulting firm said it fired the employee immediately after the company learned of his role.

The wide reach of the ad-it has received more than 1.7 million views on YouTube in just a few days-and the unmasking of its anonymous maker offer a glimpse of the changed media landscape of a nascent presidential campaign that is already bitterly competitive 10 months before the first primary.

The new popularity of web video allows broad distribution of clever political messages, often negative attack ads, which may not readily be traced to their creators.

Obama had said that not only did his campaign not produce the ad, but also that his campaign didn't have the technical know-how, the "capacity,'' to do something like this. Turns out his campaign's consultants knew how.

And for a fuller debate, including Clinton on the matter, see this package produced by CNN.

Posted by Mike Dorning at 6:30 am CST

Democrat Barack Obama's presidential campaign is hoping to start transforming his web following into on-the-ground organizational strength with a series of events across the country on March 31, kicking off "a week of localized action."

The political power of his campaign will, of course, hinge on translating virtual support into on-the-ground practical organizational strength. The events at the end of the month could provide the campaign an early gauge of its ability to accomplish that.

Obama sent an e-mail late Monday to supporters who have enrolled on his web site asking them to host gatherings of friends and family that Saturday as a "launching pad for local action the following week."

"Some groups will plan one action, while others will plan dozens of events like canvassing or community service," Obama wrote in the e-mail.

Posted by Mike Dorning at 6:30 am CST

Barack Obama's presidential campaign is claiming early success in cultivating spontaneous grassroots organizing with a web site that looks a lot like MySpace or Facebook.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe sent out an e-mail on Thursday celebrating on-line enthusiasm during the opening of the Obama presidential campaign.

"Online, people have been inspired to engage with this campaign in record numbers," Plouffe writes.

Posted by Mike Dorning at 1:50 pm CST.

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign is already tapping its well-established network of small-dollar donors with an Internet-based campaign to raise $1 million in one week.

An e-mail sent out about an hour ago under the name of political strategist James Carville showed that the campaign had already raised $285,332 for its "One Week, One Million" fundraising campaign.

"Our 'One Week, One Million' campaign will send a clear message: Hillary won't back down, and we've got her back," Carville write in the e-mail.

Expect many more of such Internet fundraising campaigns in the year ahead. With this year's campaign expected to be the most expensive ever and the cost of an e-mail fundraising plea virtually free, candidates and their surrogates will be frequent visitors to the in-box of anyone who gives their e-mail address to a political campaign.

Posted by Mike Dorning at 6:27 pm CST.

Presidential candidate Barack Obama is taking a page from social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

In a web video e-mailed to supporters a few minutes ago, Obama not only urges them to watch his Springfield, Ill., announcement speech live via streaming video on the campaign web site.

He encourages them to set up a profile on the Obama web site. His description of the tools sounds a lot like some of the popular features on social networking sites. He suggests that supporters use the site to form their own virtual groups. And he notes that supporters can use the web site to create personal blogs to "chronicle your campaign experience."

Posted by Mike Dorning at 6:30 am CST.

Backers of Sen. Barack Obama have rapidly built up large networks of supporters using the popular social web site Facebook. The political value of the social networking groups is unclear but they provide a potential base of supporters to turn to for volunteer activities or, possibly, small contributions.

One group on www.Facebook.com, popular among college and high school students and recent alumni, already has attracted more than 175,000 members, with a goal of building a list of at least 1 million by the time Obama is scheduled to make his official announcement on Feb. 10.

The group, "Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)", writes on its information page that it was created on Jan. 16 by Farouk Olu Aregbe, a recent University of North Dakota alumnus now living in Washington, DC. Aregbe could not immediately be reached.

The organization Students for Barack Obama also began as a Faecebook group, "Barack Obama for President in 2008," with more than 53,000 members now.