Google today announced that it has signed up the Obama and McCain campaigns to share blog posts and news items they read on Google Reader. This program, called Power Readers in Politics also includes items shared by a number of high-profile journalists. While neither Google nor the campaigns pretend that the candidates themselves do any of the sharing (McCain doesn't know how to use a computer, after all), this is an interesting experiment and might just introduce feed reading to a few more people.
Some of the journalists involved in this effort include John Dickerson from Slate (who is also a pretty active Twitter user), Mike Allen from Politico, Chuck DeFeo from Townhall, Arianna Huffington, and Ruth Marcus from the Washington Post. These journalists, by the way, have also shared a lot more items so far than any of the campaigns.
There are no major surprises in the reading lists of the two campaigns and it also needs to be noted that these are relatively small lists. John McCain's list is comprised of 26 feeds, while the Obama campaign only tracks 18 sources, including its own blog (and yes, somewhat predictably, McCain tracks Fox News and Obama the New York Times...). Overall, though, these reading lists are very conservative and mostly include the major, well known news organizations and large political blogs.
The setup of Power Readers in Politics is quite well done overall. Google completely avoids using any technical terms like RSS and OPML that might scare away users unfamiliar with feed reading. Instead, Google just offers users to subscribe to these reading lists in Google Reader. If this gets any traction, it might become a good way for Google to introduce more people to feed reading - but for that to happen, the campaigns will have to start sharing a bit more and may have to get a bit more adventurous in what items they share.
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http://www.votetheday.com/polls/us-presidential-elections-1/
Posted by: votetheday.com | August 31, 2008 6:14 AM
McCain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year-old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children.
But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children.
But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.
When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.
‘My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does.’
Some of McCain’s acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ‘play the field’. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.
Posted by: Citizen | September 5, 2008 3:30 PM
mccain will take america to war as most of his comments are based on war tone.it is true no one wants the terrists but terrists are every where they are in india ;china , africa , russia and even hostile countries to america are americans going to hunt these criminals every corner without the support of others .the american economy is declining ,do you think you will fight this war alone with your depletated economy
Posted by: george johnson | September 10, 2008 4:43 AM
mccain will take america to four more years of war america should think of rebuilding their economy not wars anymore.yes we know america is a super power but when its economy is collapsed it will go back to the same story of rebilding the rocked economy like that of germany after world war 2
Posted by: george johnson | September 10, 2008 4:57 AM