Joe The Plumber, The Presidential Debates & Search, Search Engine Land.

Anyone watching tonight’s US Presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama heard both candidates speak directly to “Joe The Plumber” several times. No, it’s not a fictional Joe. No, it’s not Sarah Palin’s Joe Six Pack. He’s a real person that Obama spoke to earlier this past weekend about economic concerns and taxation. But if you’re turning to search engines to find more about him, as many are, there are a lot of surprises along the way.

Obama vs. McCain: The Wired Scorecard, Wired.

What do Barack Obama and John McCain say, and what have they done, about policies that matter to Wired? Here are descriptions and analysis on five issues:

1. Broadband
2. H1B issues
3. Investment in green tech
4. Net neutrality
5. Spectrum

Complete guide to Google Analytics, TechRadar.

Analytics has also expanded to encompass a larger tool set and conversion process. It includes offline data sources and multivariate testing solutions. Perhaps the largest shift is that virtually everyone is now aware of and able to afford a quality web analytics and multivariate testing platform.

Tell America To Google The Facts!

Another Way To Follow The Campaign: Dipity’s Election Center Timelines, TechCrunch. 

Want to follow every Tweet, blog post, YouTube video and Flickr photo put out by the Obama or McCain camps? Now you can follow the campaigns in a handy Dipity Election Center timeline.

DEBATE FACT #5: RATING THE TWO CANDIDATES, JohnMcCain.com.

CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERNMENT WASTE: Barack Obama Has A Low Lifetime Rating Compared To John McCain's High Lifetime Rating

* Citizens Against Government Waste Gave Obama A Lifetime Rating Of 18 Percent. (Citizens Against Government Waste, "2007 Senate Ratings," councilfor.cagw.org, Accessed 10/4/08)

*Citizens Against Government Waste Gave McCain A Lifetime Rating Of 88 Percent. (Citizens Against Government Waste, "2007 Senate Ratings," councilfor.cagw.org, Accessed 10/4/08

Update: Tennessee man indicted for hacking Palin's e-mail account, InfoWorld.

David C. Kernell was indicted Tuesday on a single charge of accessing a protected computer by a grand jury in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee in Knoxville. The indictment, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, was unsealed Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Today I had the opportunity to call into a bipartisan bloggers conference call hosted by David All and Joe Trippi featuring a question and answer session with T. Boone Pickens regarding the Pickens Plan. You can listen to the audio of the call here.

Right now the United States is importing 70% of its oil from foreign countries costing us $700 billion annually (that number won’t just go away).

The Pickens Plan presents a clear solution to the cut down the dependence on foreign oil, which Pickens is spending $58 million dollars of his own money to advertise. His plan would not only reduce the amount of oil we import but would create jobs and stimulate economic growth.

The United States currently uses natural gas to produce 22% of our electricity. Pickens proposes we replace that with wind energy. He wants to build over 100,000 wind turbines throughout the “wind belt” (from Texas all the way north to Canada) over a ten-year period.

Pickens was asked: why now? Which is a reasonable question to ask an 80-year-old oil tycoon who could just go retire on a tropical island. Pickens said he noticed from Nixon forward that every president has promised an energy plan, but has done nothing. He understands this is his problem as much as ours.

Pickens made it clear his number one priority is to make sure America is not relying on other countries for oil for generations to come when he told the bloggers “Anything that reduces the dependence on foreign oil I’m for, as long it’s American.”

Pickens also touched on his meeting last week with Sarah Palin. He said their dialogue was mostly energy related and he thought she was qualified to handle energy policy on the national stage, more so than Obama or McCain.

Pickens will be hosting an e-rally before and after tomorrow night’s second presidential debate to talk about energy independence and the Pickens Plan. There are already 400,000 people signed up for it.  To participate you can RSVP here.

New Ad: Lies and Sighs.

Dishonorable Ifill, National Review Online.

It's interesting that energy, Palin's signature issue, never came up in the form of a question; she mentioned it in relation to questions about climate change and carbon emissions. As Ace noted, it's interesting that abortion never came up, nor guns. Nothing on earmarks, government waste, or much on the budget.

The benefits of blogging, The Hill.

Discussions and debates about public policy issues are taking place all the time within the blogosphere — with or without your organization’s involvement. While the concept of blogging continues to be met with skepticism and reluctance at the C-Suite level, the D.C.-based offices of corporations and associations should nonetheless consider creating a blog as part of their overall communications and lobbying strategies.

Google Launches "In Quotes" Project To Compare US Presidential Candidates, Search Engine Land.

Google has launched a new labs project named In Quotes. In Quotes allows you to compare quotes between the two US Presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama.

McCain, Online Social Networker?, Technology Review.

Whatever anyone thinks of Barack Obama, there's not much question that he mastered online social-networking technologies as a tool to help him eke out victory against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. Is John McCain now catching up?...when it comes to new growth, McCain's numbers are increasing at a faster rate.

Law Makers Clash Ahead of Oil Drilling Bill Vote, New York Times. 

Democrats and Republicans clashed over energy issues on Tuesday as the House prepared for a vote later in the evening on a bill to relax a ban on offshore oil drilling for the first time in a quarter-century.

McCain Ads Are Hybrid Vehicles, Washington Post. 

How do the ads save McCain money? Well, consider that McCain has $84 million to spend between now and Election Day -- that's the federal allotment of money he decided to take during the general election contest. While the Republican National Committee will devote much of its privately financing to field operations, microtargeting, and voter contact, McCain will spend most of his public funding on television ads 

Videosurf: New, Genuinely Radical Video Seach, Search Engine Land.

I'm generally not given to hyperbole or breathless enthusiasm when writing about a new search service. Quite the opposite, in fact—over the decade I've covered search I've seen so many so-called "radically new" approaches that are simply updates or spins on existing technologies that I've grown a bit jaded.

Blogger, Author, Palin Booster: Meghan McCain's New Chapter, Washington Post.

She bounced into the shop to find two dozen fans clutching multiple copies of her book. Employee Amy Baum invited McCain last week, never dreaming she would actually show up, much less agree to an hour-long author's signing. But there she was (black jacket, jeans, blond hair pulled up), charming every customer, personalizing each book and posing for pictures.

Three DEMO Companies To Keep An Eye On, TechCrunch.  

This week we’re going to see dozens of companies launch new products. Here are a few of the companies presenting this week at DEMO that are showing some strong potential: