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?

There has been a lot of discussion lately over who is winning online - conservatives or liberals? You might as well ask which is better, an apple or an orange?

If I may paint with a wide brush for a moment, conservatives and liberals are different sorts of people. We have different world views. We enjoy different activities. We react differently to the same events. And we engage politically in different ways.

There has been much bemoaning the almighty YearlyKos, which has been called a progressive movement (except that apparently the only movement this year was around the breakfast buffet). Approximately 1,500 lost and lonely wandered into the event, but this number wouldn't fill an afternoon panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held each year in Washington. Over 5,000 conservative activists fill CPAC not only to hear great speakers and get huge stacks of books autographed but also to attend workshops -- where they learn new ways to take action.

Herein lies the difference.

Liberals (still using the wide brush here) tend to be inherently good at making noise, sometimes false noise, then repeating it over and over with a straight face as if that noise means something. Conservatives on the other hand generally look through the hype and find ways to get a job done.

Liberals make a lot of noise, they organize cool rallies with witty signs, then they... get nothing done (see Howard Dean's oft-lauded campaign). The Internet, especially via blogs, is perfectly suited for this disposition. Conservatives look to a challenge and go about conquering it. No committees. No rallies. Just results.

In 2004, MoveOn.org created a lot of noise. They lost. In 2004, independent bloggers took action and found out the truth about Dan Rather's falsified documents. They won.

A separate conference like YearlyKos is necessary to create more noise and excite liberals online. Integrating online panels and workshops at a conference like CPAC is necessary to create action and enable conservatives online.

Why has the Drudge Report been such a popular website over the years? It's just the facts, the latest news, and we're back about our day. Blogging for conservatives is integrated, part of our lives and a vehicle to take action.

As a consultant, I often advise clients to take an integrated approach to their communications. While bright shiny objects like Facebook and blogging may look like fun, using them has to be integrated with a strategic approach to truly make an impact. In this context, it’s not hard to see how YearlyKos is a bright shiny object, one that might even intimidate conservatives. CPAC on the other hand is informative, real, and actionable. It is integrated.

As we measure the success of conservatives online, it will look a lot different than how liberals measure success. Theirs will be measured in the number of activists recruited, videos downloaded, or "members" of certain sites. It will, in effect, be a measure of noise. Conservatives must look for ways to enable and measure action. Patrick Ruffini’s recent creation, RightRoots.com, is a prime example of a successful online conservative best practice. The same can be said for Eric Cantor’s Solutions Factory. Either by contributing money or contributing ideas, these sites encourage conservatives to take action.

We will continue to hear how liberals are winning online. Don’t believe it. It's all a bunch of noise. Instead, take action. We eConservatives still have a lot of work to do, but we are doing a better job than you may think.

Over the last few hours, I'd been hearing buzz that GOP candidates were going wobbly on the CNN/YouTube debate. I was dismissive. Given the huge earned media hit the Democrats got this week, the fact that even the highly partisan questioners acquitted themselves better than Chris Matthews did in the first debate, and the sponsorship of the powerful Republican Party of Florida, I didn't think the GOP candidates would make the political mistake of passing up it up.

I was apparently wrong. Rudy Giuliani is unlikely to participate, according to an official source.

And Mitt Romney wouldn't commit, dissing the "snowman question."

Mitt Romney didn't like some of the more frivolous trappings and told the New Hampshire Union Leader that "I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman."

I would now expect numerous candidates to bail, just like they did at Ames, citing the lack of a frontrunner.

This is a big mistake. The Democrats are afraid to answer questions from Big Bad Fox News Anchors, and the Republicans are afraid to answer questions from regular people. Which is worse?

It's stuff like this that will set the GOP back an election cycle or more on the Internet. No matter the snazzy Web features and YouTube videos they may put up, if they're fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea of interacting with real people online, what's the point?

Having spent the better part of a decade working at the intersection of politics and the Web, I can't help but feel of a deep, deep sense of dismay that we're missing something so basic. This is EXACTLY why I am afraid that we will be outraised by $100 million or more in 2008.

Yes, some of the questions on Monday were trivial. Yes, they were partisan. (I expect many of the 9/17 questioners to be partisan Republicans.) Yes, they were messy. But so is democracy. And the fact that some place so much faith in the broken mainstream media over a benign format like this one says a lot about the difficult straits the Republicans are in right now.

Perhaps the rest of the field will prove me wrong.