The Daily Digest

The FEC demonstrates what the federal government can do with new media: check out its new Presidential Campaign Finance map, which aggregates, by state and then zip code, individual contributions to each presidential candidate. (New York and Southern California rank first and second.) Like Microsoft Word, the map is detailed, but in a layered way that is user-friendly. (BTW, the National Science Foundation, another executive-branch agency, also sports a cutting-edge Web site.)

The NYT reviews the lucky few who have parlayed their blogging hobby into a paid profession.

Matt Lewis conjectures why Ron Paul won't shut up about Iraq: "If you're a conservative who supports the president's war, you have nine candidates to choose from. But if you're a conservative who believes that going into Iraq was a mistake, Ron Paul is the only game in town."

Meanwhile, Paul is coming around, finally, if awkwardly, on the importance of sound-bite messaging. "I'm for the individual," he asserts. "I'm not for the government."