The Daily Digest

Hott4Hill Featuring Taryn Southern

Emergency eye surgery has forced Jim Gilmore to suspend his presidential campaign.

Social networking for politicos? Check out ePolitico.com, coming soon.

Todd Ziegler identifies and lauds the novelty of Ron Paul's Web site: "Interestingly for the social candidate, his blog doesn’t even allow comments. Instead, it encourages visitors to discuss/interact with the blog content on social sites like Digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and Facebook. He seems to deliberately avoid building a community on his own site. Due to this, supporters have no choice but to organize elsewhere. . . . [T]he use of these free tools is done out of necessity. But the strategy here is also very sound: by not giving supporters much to do on his own site he maximizes the amount of noise they make in other venues. It is the perfect approach for an insurgent candidate like Paul."

Speaking of Paul, Wonkette pens a memo to his campaign manager: "There’s no need to have him prance around like John Edwards, obviously, but one good suit (with two pairs of pants, two shirts and three ties) and two $150 pairs of decent dress shoes would go a long way towards making your candidate look less like a vacuum-cleaner repairman." Similarly, Mike Gravel, the Ron Paul of Democrats, who donned khakis and a blazer at his party's last debate, could use a visit from Lisa Butcher and Mica Paris.

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The Jim Gilmore You Don't Know

First, the bad. He favors abortion rights during the first two months of pregnancy, he presided over an increase in state spending as governor of Virginia, and he failed to pave the way for a Republican successor.

Now the good. He's been the head of the Republican National Committee and the Republican Governors Association, a director of the Air Force Academy, is a director of the National Rifle Association, and chaired a federal commission on homeland security that, two years before 9/11, issued a report warning that the nation was vulnerable to a terrorist attack. The latter credential, as Bob Barr has written, gives Gilmore "the most solid understanding" of homeland security of any presidential candidate. "He was a leader in the field before half the country became armchair anti-terrorism experts."

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Jim Gilmore: "I Don't Claim to Be a Better Conservative"

Former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore spoke to a small group of conservative journalists this morning at the office of Americans for Tax Reform. The hour-long session was part of the American Spectator Newsmaker Breakfast series. I’ll post a write-up later today; for now, let me report the governor's response to my question.

I began, "You’ve said you’re the only true conservative," at which point Gilmore cut me off, lifted his briefing papers from the table and slammed them back down.

"I have never said I'm the only true conservative," Gilmore declared. He explained that the line came from a reporter, and has been recycled ad nauseam.

A few minutes with Google, however, indicates otherwise.

According to the Associated Press, in December, Gilmore said “he saw no true conservative in the GOP field.” That same month, he told the Washington Post, “There is no committed conservative in this race who can put together a national campaign.”

In February, Gilmore “told bloggers that he’s the only conservative in the race,” according to the host of that meeting, Rob Bluey of the Heritage Foundation. A few days later, at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, Gilmore repeated that “he is the only conservative in the race,” according to Kathryn Jean-Lopez, the editor of National Review Online.

In March, an article from the Virginian-Pilot noted, “Gilmore, 57, says he can win because he’s the only ‘real conservative’ seeking the GOP nomination in 2008.” In April, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported, "Claiming that he is the only true conservative in the race, Gilmore said, 'I won't waffle, waiver or change.'"

Gilmore then allowed me to continue my question, which I modified as follows: You say you're the most "consistent" conservative. What specifically about your fellow second-tier candidates makes them inconsistent?

Again, Gilmore tried to disabuse me. "I don't claim to be a better conservative" than the other candidates, he said.

More to follow. In the meantime, judge for yourself.

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Jim Gilmore Shows (Inadvertently) How Important a New Media Adviser Is

Former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore formally announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination yesterday. In case you missed it (as I did until I came across Marshall Manson's post at On Tap), you're not alone. Here's why:

1. If you Google "Jim Gilmore," you need to scroll through 32 other sites before you get to GilmoreforPresident.com. Unless you've changed your preferences on Google.com, this means you must click through three pages of results (ask yourself when was the last time you went past the first page?). Indeed, as this techPresident chart shows, Gilmore's campaign site is by far the hardest to find among all the candidates.

2. Equally discouraging, clicking on Google's 36th result for "Jim Gilmore"—http://jimgilmore08.com/issues.htm, which is supposed to be a mirror to GilmoreforPresident.com—produces the message, "The requested URL /issues.htm was not found on this server."

3. As soon as Gilmore for President loads, the home page hits you over the head with a video, which automatically starts playing, instead of allowing you, a la YouTube, to click Play at your discretion. This is not only bad etiquette (the equivalent of typing in all capital letters), but it's technologically unsound, since it makes you averse to returning to the home page. (Incidentally, the same problem plagued the process for embedding videos from OURcountry.com, which is currently undergoing an upgrade.)

4. Worse, this video is not Gilmore's announcement for president, but his announcement of an exploratory committee. To find the former, you need to click on a link.

5. While this link contains the video you want, it was uploaded using Adobe FlashPlayer, which does not allow embedding the video into your own blog.

6. The savvy user—if you're still interested and patient enough—will then hop on over to YouTube. You search for "Jim Gilmore," and the first video that appears comes from a self-described "official" GilmoreforPresident account. But this account only contains one video (the exploratory announcement), hasn't been logged-into for two months, and goes by the handle "Ed Ruff," not "Jim Gilmore."

7. You realize something's amiss, so you do another search for "Jim Gilmore." This time, you click on the fourth result, titled "Jim Gilmore announces for president (Part One)" and uploaded by Gilmore4Pres. Finally, you are able to watch, share, save and embed the governor's announcement for president.

According to the AP, Gilmore "made his announcement in a Webcast . . . sent out over his campaign's Web site." (As Gilmore himself notes, "We're doing much of this, of course, over the Web page [sic] here today.") This indicates that somebody in the campaign at least recognizes the Internet's potential.

At this point, however, Gilmore's online presence is causing him more harm than good. This is regrettable because it's still very much correctable; in fact, with a robust about-turn, Gilmore could slide into the second tier of candidates.

In short, the Internet offers Jim Gilmore both the cheapest and the most effective chance to raise his profile. That he's in over his head is understandable, but that he's wasting the one bullet in his gun is not.

Update (5/3): Rob Bluey points out another depressing detail: less than 10 weeks ago, Gilmore promised the weekly gathering of conservative bloggers that he would be the first blogger in chief.

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