Presidential candidates have discovered that being on the Web means more than posting a few glitzy pictures, speech transcripts and an “e-mail me” link.
Hoping to tap into the popularity of Web 2.0 applications such as blogs and widely used social networking sites like MySpace and YouTube, several candidates are gravitating toward such technology to garner support and raise money.
At the same time, campaign officials acknowledged that such efforts are not without substantial risk. For example, pushing the limits of Web 2.0 technology, such as opening blogs for quick, public postings, could lead to unwanted or libelous posts, analysts said.
A firestorm of criticism aimed at Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards this month was cited as a strong example of why campaigns must advance carefully. After two of his campaign’s bloggers made comments that some thought were anti-Catholic,
Edwards first criticized the blogs but didn’t fire the bloggers. However, the criticism mounted, and both women resigned from the campaign last week.
One of those bloggers, Amanda Marcotte, wrote in her blog that she resigned because “every time I coughed, I felt like I was risking the Edwards campaign.” The other blogger, Melissa McEwan, said she resigned because she had become a liability to the campaign.
Most campaigns are struggling with “how do you leverage Web 2.0 and true communities online while maintaining some control over your candidate,” said Julie Barko Germany, deputy director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet at George Washington University. “[Campaigns] want to be able to influence how people perceive their candidates.”
Thus, she said, most campaigns will post carefully crafted messages themselves instead of allowing unfettered external comment. “The race to the White House in 2008 will be all about how candidates talk to people online,” Barko Germany added.
Edwards announced his second presidential run with a video on the YouTube site, and his Web site includes links to personalized pages on the YouTube, MySpace and Facebook social networking sites — and even Flickr, a site for sharing and organizing photos.
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) officially announced the start of her presidential campaign on her Web site, which she said also plans to launch a blog.
On Feb. 10, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) formally announced his presidential run in a speech delivered in Springfield, Ill., but a day earlier, he had posted a video touting his new social networking plan on his campaign Web site.
In that video, he urges supporters to use the site to organize fundraisers, create blogs and “organize your friends, your neighbors and your networks. We can collect small donations instead of having to rely o
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