This story begins two days ago in South Carolina, where on an impromptu campaign stop a woman asks Senator McCain a fairly, shall we say, pointed question. The woman's question was this: "How do we beat the bitch?" Pan, zoom, and in the crosshairs is a candidate facing a potentially explosive situation. Cue the YouTube video. (Let me say upfront that I'm a McCain-booster, and am enthusiastically supporting his candidacy).

Now, we all recall the "macaca moment", and in fact, that memory keeps many GOP communications directors on edge, I'm sure. And it should. The Allen campaign's ineffectual response has become emblematic in many ways of the understanding deficit on the Right when it comes to the Internet and new media.

Back to the tale of the tape: McCain reacted with his trademark humor. Aided by a man in the audience who asked whether the woman had meant his ex-wife, McCain used the question to make a savvy point: he is beating Hillary in several national polls. (See this PDF from the campaign for specifics.)

In the hours that followed the event, the video surfaced on fairly liberal Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo, in truncated form. Overnight, the video went from Internet obscurity to the cable news circuit, and even made the rounds on many local news channels.

Enter CNN's Rick Sanchez, and his shameless attempt to turn the video of McCain's reply into a "gotcha" moment. Sanchez seemed to think McCain didn't do enough to defend Mrs. Clinton. He even went so far as to get Whoopi Goldberg on the phone--who actually weighed in with a modest defense of McCain. Sanchez wasn't having any of it; he was unabashedly trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. (Note: for more on this strange strain of logic, see this inane post at Daily Kos: Cindy McCain Is A Bitch)

Some of you may remember that the term "Clinton News Network" came about in the 90s. Leaving aside that gobs of Time Warner PAC money has flowed into Hillary Clinton's campaign, CNN on its own merits isn't held in high regard by too many conservatives. McCain's Camp undoubtedly recognized this, and dutifully prepared a response.

In what must be record time after the last GOP debate, McCain's campaign cut an ad featuring McCain's major applause line of the evening (See: Tied Up). It's that bit of brilliance that sets up this next move.

Yesterday, the campaign fired a volley back at CNN in a letter to supporters from Campaign Manager Rick Davis using the CNN attack as a fundraising peg. The letter itself became newsworthy, as papers like The Hill and others began reporting not just on the South Carolina McCain-supporter's choice of words, but also on the looming CNN vs. McCain dustup.

In a post at Red State, Soren Dayton amplified an interesting point: "CNN Goes Where Whoopi Won't." Adam C. also filed a report mentioning the CNN attack on Sen. McCain. Then came an AOL poll showing 67% of readers believed McCain "did a good job answering the question."

Just as blogger's like John Hinderaker at PowerLine were speculating about the meaning of McCain's comeback, the CNN story took another turn.

Enter Wolf Blitzer and The Situation Room. Blitzer delved into the McCain counterattack, the highlight of which was his guest Howard Kurtz succinctly stating that Rick Sanchez was way off base in his earlier comments. Sanchez tried to come back last night with a brief retort, but it was weak at best. Today, Whoopi brought the question back up for discussion, on The View, no less--but again, there she was offering a defense of John McCain.

So what can we conclude (besides that McCain's campaign has a lot of life left in it, and appears, in fact, to be on the rise)? Well, for starters, it's refreshing to see a GOP campaign have it "together" on Internet strategy and new media. Sure, you can argue McCain didn't have it so tough with that question. But imagine for a moment how some of the other candidates would have answered it...

My point is this: McCain and his campaign adroitly turned a potentially damaging "YouTube Moment" into a terrific fundraising/earned media opportunity. To be fair, they were aided by a sensationalist CNN anchor who appears to be trying to reach Keith Olbermann status. I'm sure there'll be plenty more "gotcha" YouTube moments ahead in the Presidential race. But at the end of the day, how many campaigns will successfully weather the storm, and indeed, come out on top, as McCain did?

It's that time of year, time for pirate costumes, pumpkins and presidential primaries. Everyone it seems is trying to get a piece of the primary pie.

One trend is for startups to find a way for vocal techies to use there new service to promote a candidate.

One company to do this is Jott Networks. They offer a voice to text service. Sign up for an account then call their number, say who you want to contact (a friend, your blog, twitter) then record your 30 second message.

Jott then transcribes your message and sends it out to wherever you want it to go. I use it to twitter on the go without bothering to type in a text message.

Best of all... it's free!

So how does this affect a presidential candidate? Well Jott created a new sister site called JottTheVote.com where you can call in, record a message for your candidate of choice and a short while later it appears on the site. Like magic :-)

I think Jott cares more about getting people to use their service than they do about the 2008 elections but it is still a cool device to try. In case you were wondering Ron Paul has more Jotts than any other candidate. Others are still in single digits.

It's a good way to see how tech savvy a candidates supporters really are. Click here to see my Jott for John McCain.

Another thing that makes this unique is that Jott is sending all the comments directly to each campaign. I'm interested to see how this goes.

Those who are measuring the use of Web 2.0 technologies by Republicans may need a new yardstick soon, given conservatives rapid adoption of everything from Facebook applications to the virtual reality world Second Life.

Tomorrow, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich will host a series of seminars dubbed Solutions Day. While the actual events will take place in Atlanta, Gingrich and his organization have pulled together an impressive network of companion events across the country. The grassroots nature of these events is impressive in and of itself, and the content of the presentations is sure to be thought provoking, but what is most revolutionary about Solutions Day is that it will also take place in Second Life.

Second Life is a virtual world that has been the focus of much debate in corporate marketing. While many people invest countless hours working, living, and playing in Second Life, it has not caught on in the mainstream the way other social media platforms such as Facebook have.

According to the Solutions Day website, "Since Solutions Day is the beginning of the next movement, it made sense that American Solutions rent the virtual West front of the U.S. Capitol to hold a workshop in Second Life on September 27 where 13 years to the day earlier the Contract with America was signed on the steps on the real West end of Capitol."

The Solutions Day virtual workshop will take place at 2:00 pm EDT on September 27. More information can be found on the American Solutions website at www.americansolutions.com.

In addition to Gingrich's foray into the virtual world, a conservative PAC is reaching out to the Facebook world. RedStormPAC has developed a Facebook application that will allow small donors to contribute to conservative candidates utilizing "the 'long tail' of online fundraising."

I've written in the past about why Republicans need Facebook, and actually wrote a "bonus tip" urging conservative web gurus to develop Facebook applications. Facebook is the platform today to connect with and motivate online political activists. In addition to posting links, starting groups, and advertising on Facebook, creating an actual application can bring measurable ROI to a campaign's online efforts.

On their website, RedStormPAC focuses on Virginia races. This would suggest that if one state-based PAC can build a fundraising mechanism through Facebook, web developers in other states or working on a national level will likely follow suit.

Each day, emerging technologies provide new opportunities for conservatives to reach their target audiences and gain a competitive advantage in campaigns at all levels. Whether holding a press conference in front of a virtual U.S. Capitol or asking a network of friends for small donations, the next evolution of campaigning is clearly taking place at the intersection of communications and the Internet.

Long-time Tennessee blogger Bill Hobbs, one of the guys who practically invented local-blogging, has taken a job as communications director of the Tennessee Republican Party. I want to say how this is disruptional -- how it's proof that new media is evolving into the fabric of campaigns, and how this gets us closer to the point where we will no longer have eCampaign, Internet, new media, etc. departments, where the high command of any campaign will be required to be tech visionaries in the same way today's campaign managers are required to be field visionaries or media visionaries.

But this is not revolutionary. That's because Bill is not the first blogger to take a state party Communications Director job this year. He is the third. The other two are Shaun Kenney of the Republican Party of Virginia and Bill Nowling (of Lunchbucket Conservative) for the Michigan Republican Party. (Of course, Nowling's boss is Saul Anuzis, a blogosphere hero in his own right.) A fourth state party, Massachusetts, has recently seen Rob Willington, a forward-leaning tech-oriented thinker take over as Executive Director. Rob was telling me about all the cool things they are planning to roll out when he came down for last week's Modern Media Strategies workshop.

It's significant that neither Bill or Shaun or Bill or Rob serve as "Director of New Media." They are ED or Communications, basically the #2 and #3 positions in the parties. Bloggers are now shepherding all press outreach, both to electronic and old media. That's a big deal.

Allen Fuller has a great post up discussing Fred's online announcement on September 6th. For whatever reason, people's antennae seem to go up whenever there's an inkling of Fred running a video-based campaign, and this is no exception.

Fred Thompson will launch a legitimate campaign for President via webcast. That's just unreal. Sure, Hillary and Edwards and all them did it months ago, but that was months ago when there was no pressure and relatively little media attention. I'm as much of a new media guy as anyone, and I applaud them for going for it, but this is risky at best. Friends of Fred Thompson will not get nearly the attention from the mainstream media as a big event on the square in Lawrenceburg, Tenn. would. On the other hand, this does play to his strength. He is a professional TV actor after all. I'd imagine they will allow networks to play the broadcast-quality video live as well. Either way it is a go-for-broke strategy and I'm interested to see how it plays out.

I for one applaud Fred for announcing on the Web. It's a strategy I've advocated for candidates in different settings for months. With that said, context matters. And to put it mildly, I don't think they've handled the run-up to this announcement very well.

You know that when a campaign puts the words, "Yes, we're serious" in a campaign e-mail, it's gonna be good.

Mitt Romney's create-your-own-ad contest is exactly the kind of online innovation I've been waiting for out of the Republican candidates for President. The winning ad gets a real, live media buy. In other words, supporters are co-creating something of actual value and importance to the campaign. That's meaningful, and supporters get that.

Lots of user-generated content contests fail because the sponsor tries to create an incentive that exists only in the online parallel universe. Users sense the second-class treatment, and yawn. This is gutsier because they're putting real dollars behind it (hopefully it won't be just a phantom buy), and after MoveOn's Hitler ads, the quintessential example of bad user generated content, it's particularly bold.

The JumpCut platform will help the campaigns manage the flow, and give even average users the chance to edit a video. The production values and complexity of the winning video probably won't match what the TV admakers can put together. But does it matter? Wasn't the great thing about "The Pitch," the best campaign video of 2004, the fact that it was understated -- effectively a bunch of photos stitched together? (See if you can remember the narrator.)

Plus, as has been pointed out before with user-generated contests like this, the genius is not what happens with the winner, but how the also-rans take pride in their videos and spread them through their personal networks. This is a creative way to spread the Romney message with hundreds of small videos distributed throughout the Web.