TechCrunch has been interviewing presidential candidates in recent weeks -- the first five to participate were Republicans Mitt Romney and John McCain, and Democrats John Edwards, Mike Gravel and Barack Obama -- and its primaries are running from Dec. 18 to Jan. 18. The site will endorse one candidate from each major party "as the 'Tech President' candidate based on the popular results of reader voting and blog input from our community of technology leaders and entrepreneurs."

Ten specific issues are being emphasized in the primary: network neutrality, immigration and H1-B visas, taxes and Internet taxes, technology education, the "digital divide," identity theft, the mobile spectrum auction scheduled for January, China, intellectual property, and renewable energy.

Ironically, techPresident's Sifry accused TechCrunch of violations in two of those areas -- identity theft (later retracted) and intellectual property -- for allegedly stealing the brand that techPresident has been working to build since it launched in February. Sifry titled his post "TechCrunch Commits Identity Theft."