Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

The Associated Press turns in well-written but ultimately bland story about the growing role of the Internet in political campaigns, a story that doesn't tell you anything you probably don't already know.

Al Gore claimed he invented it. John McCain predicted it would revolutionize political campaigning. Howard Dean made it pay - and then some. Ah, the Internet. As candidates prepare for the 2008 presidential campaign, the Internet is the new Main Street. An estimated 70 percent of adults in the United States travel the digital highway, still a cheap and largely unregulated medium.

Reaching those potential voters and donors has become an important part of modern politicking. Candidates aggressively compete for the talents of the most creative geeks in politics and develop new ways to exploit the Net.

Republicans have mastered e-mail as the new form of direct-mail campaigns, raising money and pushing a GOP message. Democrats have excelled at raising cash through small-scale donations and making the Net their version of talk radio.

The story quotes Rick Davis, an adviser to Sen. John McCain who managed McCain's 2000 presidential campaign, saying the Internet provides "an inexpensive way to have a conversation with people with the propensity to turn out and vote."

That's true, but McCain's legislative record is one that angers many of the leaders of that online conversation. He is not beloved by the blogosphere - left or right - because of McCain-Feingold, and they won't cut him any slack. 

In the 2000 presidential race, the AP recalls, McCain predicted that "in the next few years the Internet will completely turn political campaigns upside down."

The AP calls McCain "among the most tech-savvy could-be White House candidates today." and says he "has recruited some of the top names in online campaigning."

I happen to have been privy to an email exchange involving one of McCain's "top names in online campaigning" last week. While I won't reveal names, I will mention that many of the bloggers on the receiving end the rah-rah pro-McCain email from the online wing of the McCain team were quick to hit reply-to-all and loudly proclaim the various reasons why they vow to never vote for McCain.

The "Senator Backbone" email came out a day after a federal judge overturned part of the free-speech-squashing McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, a law that raises the hackles of political bloggers for its implied threat to regulate their blogs and content. 

Wrote one blogger in response to the email:

Of course, he has backbone! Backbone when silencing our free speech. Backbone when standing up for illegal immigration, and the ending of American culture. Backbone when defending the rights of the terrorists at Guantanamo. Backbone when standing up for higher taxes...

I rather suspect the exchange caused a bit of angst inside Team McCain. How can the bloggers be against McCain when he's hired such solid bloggy talent?

The answer: Because the blogosphere never forgets. Ever.

Meanwhile, a commenter to the Larry Kudlow column that called McCain "Senator Backbone" for his refusal to back down on the war in Iraq, wrote,

McCain is the most divisive and suppressive of the jackals presenting themselves as "leaders" in the GOP. He failed to support President Bush when it mattered most, betrayed Majority Leader Frist on the few occasions when Frist was ready to show some moral courage on judicial nominations, he has worked far more closely with Democrats on key legislation than his fellow Republicans, he helped to create the greatest threat to the protection of expressing our political opinions, he has done a lot of personally divide and disrupt the Republican Party, yet THIS is what Kudlow thinks we need for our next President.

I mean, has everyone forgotten that in 2004 McCain defended Kerry against the Swiftboat veterans, preferring his friendship with an anti-Military liar over even being willing to consider the facts? Has everyone forgotten that McCain created the "Gang of 14" at the exact moment he was promising party unity to Bush and Frist?

The Internet never forgets.

That's another reason the Internet is revolutionizing politics. And candidates like John McCain have to hire Internet-savvy talent to devise new ways to exploit it.

They also have to learn to accept that it is what it is - the most open, conversational medium ever devised. Just as it can be used to raise funds and rally supporters, the Internet also provides a way for a candidate's detractors to publish their criticisms for all the world to see, often hyperlinked to a supporting source.

As much as Sen. John McCain would love for Congress to control campaign-related speech (See: McCain-Feingold), the blogosphere flourishes as an uncontrolled global conversation where anyone is free to speak their mind - and where politicians' attempts to regulate the conversation are both universally condemned and never forgotten.

McCain's right about one thing. The Internet will completely turn political campaigns upside down. And inside out.