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"Someone has been leaking my blog posts into the reading material of some of the presidential candidates daily reading material, I'm convinced of this.  There few reasons why I say this, and my immense ego is only one of them.\n\nObama and Oprah Go LiveObama went live on UStream with Oprah Winfrey this week in front of a rally of nearly 80,000 people and another 77,000 folks viewing the stream online. While Obama and company didn't interact directly with those viewing the online show, but did conduct part of the rally in a town-hall style, taking questions from the public.  It isn't exactly engaging the public, as town hall events aren't exactly something new, but it is a step in the proper direction.\n\nFiestas for McCainThis is perhaps the most surprising usage of social media by an American presidential candidate thus far in the campaign.  The front runners, or those that imagine themselves to be front runners, have been the most reticent of all the candidates to let their guard down and actually let their voice be heard personally, whether it be as a blog post, addressing comments from the online visitors, or in direct video interaction with an online audience.\nJohn McCain, though, broke with that tradition at UStream this weekend.  On Sunday, there were fourteen house parties across the country entitled \"Fiestas for McCain.\" The webcast allowed the various house parties to interact with one another, and allowed online viewers to speak with Senator McCain in real time.\nIt didn't break any viewership records, however.\n\n\n10Questions and HuckabeeAs some have noted in the last couple days, the 10Questions project seems to be failing a bit.  Those that seem oddly drawn to calling user generated content a myth have seized on  this as another opportunity to say that it is a Bad Idea. Despite the lack of participation in the project, I don't necessarily think it's a failure of UGC, but more of a failure on the part of the candidates.  Not only does their apathy towards the voters show in their lack of participation, what I predicted as a result of the YouTube-CNN debates is coming to pass.  The Republicans and some of the Democrats, I imagine, have seen the trainwreck that those debates became (which largely was the fault of CNN), and instead of blaming those responsible for said trainwreck, associate the debacle with UGC and New Media.\nDespite this, Huckabee has been ramping up his online engagement factor.  Of all the social presences and campaign sites I have surveyed, he was amongst the few to actually put his voice out there on his blog. In response to the 10Questions user generated content, he's been the only presidential candidate so far to respond.  The responses he's filed have both a personal feel as well as a directness that doesn't dodge the question.  They're definitely worth a watch, if you're engaged in the American political process and care about the outcome.  I can only hope the other candidates decide they wish to participate as well.\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2007/12/11/american-politicians-get-more-engaged/>