'The Google'

The first question at an excellent panel at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York today with top web folks from the leading campaign goes to McCain aide Mark Soohoo.

Moderator Andrew Rasiej asks for a show of hands on whether the panelists have had to tell the candidate not to say "The Google" or other flags of tech illiteracy, then turns to Soohoo.

"Is it proper to say I don’t do raised hand questions?" Soohoo responds.

ALSO: Echoing an old Grunwald/Penn line -- though also making an accurate point -- Soohoo points out that the gap in things like Facebook "friends" doesn't bear out offline.

"There is this community of people – they just may not be on Facebook," he said of McCain's supporters.

UPDATE: Soohoo is getting beat up a bit before what isn't exactly a McCain audience at the tech conference.

Pressed again on McCain's tech savvy, he defends his candidate.

"You don’t actually have to use a computer to understand how it shapes the country," he says.

"You actually do," former Edwards blogger Tracy Russo responds, suggesting he try to explain Twitter to his grandmother and then ask her how that applies to governing.

"John McCain is aware of the Internet," says Soohoo. "This is a man who has a very long history of understanding on a range of issues."