When Digg just went down for a little while many assumed it would be for the ever-on-the-cusp Pictures section, but no, Digg just came back up with a new ‘Digg The Candidates‘ section.

From Digg:

You can now check out the 2008 presidential candidates profiles on Digg! Add your favorite candidates as a friend to show support, and to see all their Digging activity in your friends’ activity feed. Many of them will be Digging, commenting and even submitting content.

On the Digg the Candidate’s main page you will see a star next to each article by each candidate’s name, this article is the candidate’s most recent favorite. When you add a candidate as a friend, a box will also be created on your profile showing which candidates you have added.

It’s always nice to see fresh approaches geared towards getting people to vote – especially young people. What I don’t like about this section though is the fact that these candidate profiles only have the “candidates” voting for positive stories about themselves. Much more interesting would be if negative stories were included as well – and even better (though a pipe dream) would be if it was actually the candidates themselves picking real stories (rather than just their own positive political stories) be it in tech or elsewhere that they found to be Digg-worthy.

Interestingly enough the leading Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, is not yet present though pretty much everyone else seems to be. Here’s what Digg has to say on that:

Looking for Senator Hillary Clinton or your favorite candidate? This page is a work in progress.

Hmm….

One thing is for certain, Ron Paul’s Digg ambassador is going to be very busy (he’s already has the most friends and is beating the 2nd closest Republican candidate – Alan Keyes, mind you – by 181 friends!).

[UPDATE]: From Daniel Burka on Kevin Rose’s Pownce note on the new section:

If/when Hilary’s camp decides to create a Digg profile, she’ll be added.

Someone is getting fired from the Clinton campaign tonight

[UPDATE 2]: Ron Paul now close to doubling the next closest rival, Democrat Barack Obama (who himself is feeling the heat from Dennis Kucinich). On the Republican side, the race is on for the #2 seed, John McCain now holds a one friend lead over Mike Huckabee (both are over 600 behind Ron Paul).

[UPDATE 3]: #1 Digger MrBabyMan notes a profile for Condoleezza Rice – funny but I don’t think the only Republican she would support is Ron Paul. In fact I don’t think she’s be allowed to support any candidate while her guy is still in office – and especially not Dennis Kucinich.