This cover story in today's Vision section in The Bee discusses how Google is being considered the 51st state when it comes to the 2008 presidential election. This is what Mary Anne Ostrom of the San Jose Mercury News says about Google:

The company's embrace of the 2008 campaign ranges from urging candidates to post videos on YouTube and buying ads on Google to stopping in to be grilled by employees at the Googleplex and giving exclusive YouTube interviews. And July 23, Google/YouTube will take another step into presidential politics, co-sponsoring a presidential debate.

As Google positions itself as a virtual election headquarters for 2008, the question becomes whether one of America's most successful companies can balance its professed civic aims with corporate profits.

It's Google, of course, so it wants both.

Candidates can no longer ignore the Internet, and any serious voter will miss a lot of campaign information if he or she does not go to a computer for Campaign 2008. This piece by Ostrom, with contributions from correspondent Frank Davies, confirms this new direction for elections.

Posted by Jim Boren at 1:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've never seen such a crowded field for a presidential election -- and the actual election, November 2008, is still a year and a half away! Here's what comedian Argus Hamilton has to say: "Joe Biden will announce for president today following the entry by Mike Huckabee and Bill Richardson and Mitt Romney and Chris Dodd. The number keeps adding up. At the rate we're going, the election is going to be a 300 million-way tie."

(Editorial cartoon: John Branch/San Antonio Express-News)

Posted by Lisa Maria Boyles at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)