Quick hit: from the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco (h/t Techcrunch):

Huffington says flat out that if it wasn’t for the Internet, Obama
would not be president. Trippi notes that Obama’s YouTube spots
gathered an aggregate of 14.5 million viewing hours. The Internet was
used by candidate previously, he said, noting the Howard Dean campaign,
but Obama really leveraged it fully with online video, blogging, social
networking and fundraising.

The panelists also note how mainstream media tends to fail in
politics, simply reporting on what each candidate says without saying
who’s right or wrong. The blogosphere, they say (particularly Trippi
and Huffington), tends to call out factual inaccuracies better than
mainstream media.

Howard Dean showed that the Internet could be used to raise lots of
money online, say the panelists. But Newsome says social networking is
significantly more powerful and allows for the creation of much more
meaningful connections between the candidate and voters. “I’m addicted
to Facebook,” he said.

I really do hope that Obama appoints a CTO for the United States.  If we are going to finally run this country like a business – and we should – then we need to pay attention to the fact that technology plays at least as important a role in our lives, our economy, and our future as Energy, Education and Labor (to name just a few cabinet-level posts).

Having someone high up who at least tries to get it, tries to coordinate & speak for the high-tech industry in the U.S., is going to be key to us being able to rebuild our shattered and outmoded economy.