I don’t remember where I started but today I fell into a new (to me) blog today called Personal Democracy Forum. They write about how technology is changing politics.

First I love how they keep a running commentary on what the Presidential candidates are doing on the Internet and who’s doing it best. As of yesterday Ron Paul seemed to be getting a lot of attention. I have a friend who is a big Ron Paul supporter and I seem to get a YouTube video a day via email on the guy – so I have to agree with the blog – he is certainly hitting a stride online.

Second I love the tracking of lots of Web 2.0 applications:

• YouTube Stats – Using a service from TubeMogul they track popularity of videos posted on YouTube by candidate. OK, it’s not super clear to me if they are only tracking videos posted by the campaigns or videos tagged with candidate names – but it’s very interesting. (Romney & Clinton are frontrunners for their parties – today.)
• Flickr Feed – an RSS feed of photos added to Flickr and tagged with a candidate’s name. No description – just random photos – very fun to watch!
• MySpace Friends – same idea as above – they track the number of friends each candidate has. (Obama & McCain are frontrunners for their parties.)
• Technorati Tracks – tracks times that candidates and possible candidates are mentioned in the blogosphere. (The results on this one are much less linear than the previous. Clinton and Paul seem to be the forerunners – though Al Gore is giving them a run for their money.)
• Eventuful Demands – Eventful.com is on online tool where folks can request a candidate to come to their town. (OK I have never requested a candidate visit but I have tried to request a visit from my favorite band.) (Obama and Paul are the runaway favorites here.)

I like to think that using the Internet will help these candidates. I hope that using the Internet will encourage these candidates to support the Internet. I assume that the campaigns and not the candidates do most of this online work but I hope that most of the candidates at least take the time to view their online activities. (OK I also hope that some of them experience trying to view these on dialup or lower “broadband” speeds just to see what it’s like.)

Third, I love that they are promoting an online petition with very specific technology goals. I’ll abbreviate the goals below:

1. Declare the Internet a public good
2. Commit to providing affordable high-speed wireless Internet access nationwide
3. Declare a “Net Neutrality” standard
4. Instead of “No Child Left Behind,” our goal should be “Every Child Connected.”
5. Commit to building a Connected Democracy
6. Create a National Tech Corps

You can go online to sign their petition.