This week (Debate centric)

Sasha—

1) Rejection. Barack Obama rejected the proposal by John McCain that they postpone the debate to go back to Washington to work on the Financial Crisis.  Critics accused McCain of using the financial crisis as politics as usual.

2) No one is Watching Bloggers jumped on the fact that this debate received such a small percentage of viewers, calling it the least watched presidential debate in modern history.

3) Tweeting the debate Twitter launched an Election 2008 site that just in time for the debate which serves as one spot to read all tweets (Twitter messages) that focus on the election by pulling out key words such as Obama, McCain, Biden, and Palin.  Many bloggers reveled at its novelty.

4) Fact-checking the candidates The Internet and digital media in general has made it much easier for the average Joe to fact check candidates.  Note the post-debate water cooler discussions in this article on epolitics.com.

Post debate bailout chatter from both sides:

5) McCain believed the bailout would pass and spoke out saying,  “I went to Washington last week to make sure that the taxpayers of Ohio and across this great country were not left footing the bill for mistakes made on Wall Street and evil and greed in Washington,” McCain said at a campaign rally in Columbus, Ohio.

6)After the bailout failed, and Obama both delivered speeches to calm the public.  McCain’s speech however focused on a rebranding effort: “From bailout to rescue”

7) The battle of the bracelets. First McCain, then Obama discussed Hero bracelets they received from mothers who lost children in the war.  Later, reports came out that  Obama was using the name of the soldier killed in the war against the wishes of the soldier’s family.

8)  Debate coverage for the digitally savy CSPAN Debate Hub embraces bloggers and social media by providing searchable, embeddable clips of the debate, accompanied by real time commentary from live bloggers and micro bloggers.

9) The next debate…The interview that just wouldn’t go away.  Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric has more than 1.6 million views on YouTube.  It would be shortsided not to mention the fact that many of have said this that the SNL spoof was the first time the actual words of the candidate were used in the SNL script.

10) Not your average Joe…The Republican National Committee makes it very easy for conservative bloggers and anyone else who cares to check out their one stop shop for Biden Gaff’s with their Joe Biden Gaff Clock