mccaincpu

Its been a tough week online for Barack Obama. His campaign may have done a superior job of organizing online political activists than his opponent, John McCain, but they are now being reminded that such organizing is actually quite easy. For example, an Obama supporter recently created a group on my.barackobama.com that was specifically devoted to opposing the senator’s stance on the controversial FISA bill. The group quickly swelled into the thousands.

The Obama campaign has one-upped McCain in online fundraising, but again those fickle Internet people are showing signs of dissatisfaction. Internet micro-celebrity Dave Winer has given repeatedly to the Obama campaign, but the well may be running dry. On June 27, he wrote an open letter to the Obama campaign with the message “I am not an ATM.”

“When I saw the email in my inbox entitled Strategy Briefing For You I thought for a brief instant that the Obama campaign had figured out that I have a mind, that I have an education and a resume, and I might be someone worth briefing,” Winer wrote. “Three paragraphs later the disappointment hits. Watch the video then give us money.”

While the Obama campaign may be experiencing online growing pains, the McCain campaign is dealing with an entirely different set of technological challenges. McCain, the self-admitted computer illiterate, has drawn some unwelcome attention and his staff is working hard to diffuse the situation.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, during an appearance on MSNBC, said that the Arizona senator loves to “tool around” on the Internet and insisted that the campaign is “cool and groovy.”

BRZEZINSKI: Did you hear Robert Gibbs? I think he might have just subtly tried to undermine your candidate’s lack of Internet capabilities. Did you hear that, Rick?

DAVIS: I have no idea what he’s talking about. We are cool and groovy… I tell you, we are down with it also. So, I can’t imagine what he is talking about.

BRZEZINSKI: Does John McCain, does he use the Internet? Does he use email?

GEIST: Come on.

BRZEZINSKI: I just want to know.

DAVIS: He actually is, he always is grabbing people’s Blackberrys on the bus. In fact, no reporter’s Blackberry is safe from his prying eyes. He loves to tool around on the Internet, he especially loves the videos that get produced that usually poke fun at him. I think that’s his most entertaining part of the Internet.

BRZEZINSKI: I’ve been known to call his Blackberry, begging for interviews. So I think any reports out there that says that he is not completely Internet connected are not accurate. But I have read them.

Since McCain loves the online video, he may not want to miss this one. Jed Lewison of The Jed Report compiled a lovely Google Earth tour of the homes owned by John and Cindy McCain. Lewison estimates the McCains own “between 10 and 13″ properties, before signing off the video with a reminder that “John McCain does not live an elitist lifestyle.”