McCain's Big Endorsement, Dems' Big Online Spending Bills

As the time in between the last political primary and the next slowly drudges along, the candidates left in this race for the nomination have not sat quietly, twiddling their thumbs—and a good Wednesday morning surf-secession proved that quite a lot happened while some of us were sleeping.

Republican First Lady extraordinaire, former First Lady Nancy Reagan, officially threw her support behind Sen. John McCain yesterday at her home in Bel Air, Calif. According to the Associated Press, Sen. McCain “stopped by the Southern California home of President Reagan's widow to accept the endorsement from the Republican matriarch he called beloved and wonderful” right in the middle of his West Coast campaign stomping.

The First Lady’s support, she says, is because of her belief that “John’s record and experience have prepared him well to be our next president." Reagan, in choosing to publicly support Sen. McCain, opens her and her legacy back up to the political arena. Very few politicians, in fact, receive her public loyalty because she “generally has stayed out of the political spotlight in recent years.” Her support could, in turn, aid Sen. McCain in gaining the approval of other Party members who do not agree with his sometimes-non-Republican Party beliefs

Also found on MSNBC's First Read, word that former President Bill Clinton has been campaigning in Kentucky for his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton. Overall, Clinton’s push home that his wife still has a decent chance at the nomination was supported by a release made by Sen. Clinton’s campaign administration of three myths they find untrue. One of these myths included that the “delegate math” is not on Sen. Clinton’s side, to which she said, “with hundreds of delegates still uncommitted, neither candidate has reached the number of delegates required to secure the nomination.” Whether or not delegate math, at this point, determines the nomination, here is another one of several moments that Sen. Clinton asserts herself back into a role of power.

The talk and debate of the Internet as a source of media, political, and social influence has been haunting newspapers and political leaders alike. How do we handle this transition, if at all?

According to Mark Walsh of MeidaPost, the releases of Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton’s Internet advertising splurges shine some light on the Internet's role in this campaign. Sen. Obama outspent Sen.Clinton so far by more than a shiny couple of pennies. Sen. Obama, apparently, dropped $1 million on a Google advertising campaign, another $4,900 on Facebook, and $99,341 on Yahoo. This, at least partly, explains his strong online support.

Sen. Clinton did not exactly cheap out, however. The Clinton Campaign paid Google $67,000 and $8,286 to Yahoo—no dollars were spent on Facebook. Strangely, Sen. Clinton and her campaign saw an increase in donations gathered by the Internet, $30 million in donations out of the $35 million total for the month of February.

Just think of it this way, presidential hopefuls are now paying your social networks thousands of dollars to reach you—so reach back.