Patrick Ruffini has an interesting piece on TechPresident noting that MittTV & HillaryHub, both of which have received stellar and unending press, aren’t exactly innovative. I won’t spoil the whole thing so go read it BUT I did want to wholly agree.

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You know I actually think a lot of people in Congress look alike but I was watching Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt on C-Span today and I ran across something startling. Look at these pictures:

He looks like California Representative Duncan Hunter! Worse than that they actually sound exactly the same too. Someone needs to look into this!

Frankly I had never heard Duncan Hunter speak until he started running for president and I hadn’t really paid much attention to him either. The likeness is scary though.

From The Hill:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) communications director Thursday said he expects the campaign to take in about $27 million in the second quarter but added that he anticipates Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to “significantly” eclipse that total.

So the Clinton camp is lowering expectations while raising them for the Obama campaign. Is it honest or is it playing politics? I have no idea but the fact that both candidates will raise that much money in the second quarter is amazing, I mean utterly amazing. It also means bad news for John Edwards and other candidates and it makes it more difficult for Al Gore if he runs.

Think about it, I am sure Gore can get a ton of Hollywood support and even some business support, but can he raise that much money if he jumps in around September?

Now remember one thing, Money is by no means the final determinate. All the money in the world cannot help if one or both of the campaigns start flubbing up or of the electorate doesn’t want them. Still its pretty darn impressive.

Five teenage girls were killed in a car accident around this area in Fairport, NY yesterday. It became a national story and I just thought I would mention what a tragedy this is and send out my best wishes for the families and community.

Marcus Merriman, an 18-year-old who knew the victims, described Hannah Congdon as “probably my best friend.”

“She always had a perfect smile on her face. She said ‘hi’ to everyone in the halls. She was very caring and sympathetic,” he said.

The girls were Bailey Goodman, Hannah Congdon, Meredith McClure, Sara Monnat, Katie Shirley. They all graduated High School this past Thursday.

The immigration bill appears dead in the Senate. Will now undoubtedly continue to be a major campaign issue and Democrats are hoping it will favor them.

Douglas Karr looks at the operating systems behind the candidates online spaces.

It’s fascinating to me that the Dems are predominantly Open Source… except for Hillary Clinton and the Republicans are predominantly Microsoft with the exception of Ron Paul, Jim Gilmore, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.

I predict Linux will win the election.

From the Associated Press:

CONCORD, N.H. –A state lawmaker said Wednesday he could no longer support Sen. John McCain’s campaign over the proposed immigration bill in Congress. But McCain’s campaign countered that state Rep. D.J. Bettencourt stepped down as its Rockingham County co-chairman only after asking for — and being refused — a paycheck.

A bit of he-said-she-said happening. Is it just me or is the McCain campaign having trouble getting along with people lately?

RealClearPolitics has the story of New State Polls: IA, FL, OH, PA, & GA and things are looking up for Fred Thompson who is now either first or second in all five states and he hasn’t even announced yet.

Meanwhile Clinton still leads in all five states and specifically in three states is beating Obama in Florida 38% to Obama’s 15%, Ohio 40% to Obama’s 12% & Pennsylvania 32% to Obama’s 18%.

I received the following e-mail from the McCain camp which was a rather heavy sales pitch:

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With everyone gearing up for the “online political revolution” this year we should remember the following:

According to a Computerworld report, “the median real-time download speed in the U.S. is 1.9Mbit/sec., compared with 61Mbit/sec. in Japan, 45Mbit/sec. in South Korea, 17Mbit/sec. in France and 7Mbit/sec. in Canada.”

Not only are our speeds pitifully slow, but we pay more for them. The Computerworld article notes that in Japan, people pay about $30 per month for 50Mbit/sec. access. By way of contrast, in the U.S., we pay $20 for about 1Mbit/sec. service and $30 to $40 for about 4Mbit/sec. service.

As I’ve previously written, we also lag the world when it comes to broadband penetration as well. We’re a mediocre 24th in the world.

In addition from the last Pew Internet survey research I saw only 15% of Americans in 2006 got election news online as their “primary source” with 31% saying they used the Internet at all for the mid-term season. I’ve seen that touted as a great number but keep in mind we are the nation that INVENTED the Arpanet and e-mail back in the 1970’s. It is 2007 and only 31% of the people are paying attention to the politics forming online in even the slightest way which could be as simple as e-mailing a friend about the election.

Only 45% of homes have broadband and that is a number that is way up from 17% in 2002 and as stated the Internet they are using is REALLY SLOW compared to other nations.

The one big hope online campaigners could pin on this though is that only 60% of the population or so votes in a presidential election. So if that 15% is part of that 60% then that is great. IF however that 15% of primary source for the Internet is young people, that is not so good as only 50% of them vote.