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NOT
your father's Presidential campaign
 Not
even close. If the internet has anything to say about it,
the days of bumper sticker mentality and less than factual
(OK, mud-slinging) political TV commercials may be over.
And it’s not just the fact that presidential hopefuls
are spending more advertising dollars online. Yes, McCain
and Obama might be neck and neck in the fight for Search
supremacy, with McCain reportedly pulling ahead in paid
Search by driving 22% of traffic from this source, compared
to Obama’s 14%, even though Obama’s spending $5.5
Million on the effort. (How’d you like to be optimizing
THOSE search campaigns?)
The real story lies in the power of the sheer number
of people engaged in the online political story, coupled
with the voluminous and instantaneous mass of information
being disseminated via blogs, videos and online news. According
to a Business
Week article, which cites a Pew Research Center study,
27% of Americans go online at least once a week to do something
related to the campaign. This represents approximately half
of the number of people who turned out to vote in 2004.
Andrew Rasiej, founder of Personal Democracy Forum, a nonpartisan
group that tracks political influence and technology, said,
"This is the unseen force that didn’t exist. My
81-year-old dad e-mailing Barack Obama's speeches or Jon
Stewart's videos to his 50 friends—he's part of this
force that's turning citizens into pamphleteers, whether
they know it or not."
The Pew study found that 40% of Americans have gone online
to get political news, up from 16% in 2000. 35% of Americans
have watched political videos, compared with 13% in 2004.
And the real differentiator is that they’re actively
doing their own fact-checking – searching out the direct
sources of information, rather than simply swallowing pundits'
take on events. About 39% have gone online to watch debates
and speeches, and read position papers.
 So
while CNN estimates that $3 billion will be spent on political
TV ads in the 2008 election (almost double the amount spent
in 2004), I'd say the odds favor a growing number of informed,
intelligent voters. Perhaps even a majority of the public
coming out to vote? Sounds like democracy to me. Thanks
Internet.
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