Presidential candidates have gotten on the Web 2.0 campaign trail -- and it's starting to look like newspapers are following their lead.

A memo released today (and available here) from The New York Times' Bill Keller outlines some of the preparations there for the 2008 presidential campaign (which has started way too early). In part:

"The migration of politics and political journalism to the web isn't quite new, but it sure is moving fast. We're moving too. For this Presidential election cycle we are organizing our coverage in a new (for us) way: for the first time, a central political desk will supervise coverage for the newspaper and the web."

Hooray for the Times for leading the way in political convergence and print-Web bipartisanship.

The New York Sun is setting up to launch a site, NYSunPolitics.com, geared to compete more with niche political Web sites than average daily newspaper sites. From The Editors Weblog:

"The site should include political blogging, dispatches from political correspondent Josh Gerstein and stories from other Sun columnists.

According to Ryan Sager, the Sun’s online editor, the website doesn’t plan to compete with other New York dailies – the NYT. Instead, it will be aimed at politics junkies and try compete with such niche publications, such as RealClearPolitics.com and The Politico."

The Washington Post already has a revamped political section up, too, at washingtonpost.com/politics.

We'll be tracking similar developments at newspapers across the country in this area -- when your newspaper starts planning or does something innovative in this area, please tell us. This goes double for smaller-market newspapers.