Del.icio.us Democracy

Six months ago, John Edwards' campaign might have been "arguably the most technologically innovative, experimental, and aggressive." But now? you can't go to any social bookmarking site without stumbling over something about Ron Paul. That's right. A republican candidate that's not even a top candidate for republican front runner.

Do I support his views? No, but you can't but admire how effectively Ron Paul and his constituency is utilizing the web. If I wasn't semi-interested in politics and kept up with it, I probably would've thought Ron Paul was going to be the republican's front runner based on his exposure on the web.

Of the 7 republican debates Ron Paul participated in, Paul won 6 based on online voting from the debates' sponsors (I was going to link to MSNBC's online voting result based on the Michigan debate here, but it would seem in MSNBC's infinite wisdom to not only not close the poll, but only allow you to view the poll by voting on it first).

Ron Paul is currently the top search term on Hitwise, and the only presidential candidate in the current popular list at Technorati. The amount of visitors for ronpaul2008.com on the daily are substantially greater than all the other republican candidates combined according to Alexa.com (The first time I saw the traffic chart at Alexa, I thought I forgot to press something because all I see is the traffic for Ron Paul, but if you look closely at the bottom of the graph, you'll see the traffic for all the other sites). Ron Paul also has the most traffic and subscribers at Youtube.com, where all presidential candidates have used this year as a means of promotion. This is not coming from a young presidential candidate, Ron Paul is a 72 years old great-grandfather.

Ron Paul is probably not going to win, but that's how he is able to explore the unconventional methods the web has now introduce into the political arena. Appearing on web-based shows (an interview conducted in a college dorm room), and using the web to raise money. Michael Prospero's blog entry at fastcompany.com made a really good point, "Paul's greatest contribution to the election may not be what he adds to the political conversation, but how he adds to it."

Internet as a political vehicle is just at its infancy, politicians are still trying to perfect how they are going to approach this method of campaigning. As my generation become more politically aware and candidates become more internet-savvy, the future facebook, myspace, youtube, and social bookmarking sites such as digg, del.icio.us and Technorati are going to be the battleground where candidates are going to duke it out.

*added 9:50pm Sunday

Man I just re-read what I wrote, its pretty dry, but politics has always been a dry topic to talk about. However, that's where internet comes in. Internet imo, the freest medium we currently have, is already and will continue to change the political landscape to become even more commercialized than when MTV came on the scene with Rock the votes. Its getting more people to talk about politics than ever, its increasing visibility of the political world to more demographics whether they want to or not. Which in the end, I think, is a good thing.

Candidates who can keep up and be hip to the internet using population in the future will get their agenda heard. Whether or not that will convert into votes is something we'll have to see.