"Tech-savvy swarm of bloggers boost candidates' online presence" (SFGate)

Great article on the internet campaigns. Much to think about! I snipped the part about Obama (only Dem mentioned in the article) and one Repug (McCain). Enjoy! Link follows snips:

<snip>

(Obama online guy)The Obama campaign is all about self-organizing. There are 345 online activists signed up as a self-appointed "Obama Rapid Response Team" who ferret out online comments about their man.

"It's not that the Internet stuff translates A to B into votes. It's that the Internet stuff translates A to B into organization," he said. "It's the folks that are signing up in Illinois to get on the bus and go to Iowa and plug into the organization there."

<snip>

(McCain online guy)Four years ago, his crushkerry.com blog hit the zeitgeist as Sen. John Kerry was cruising to the Democratic nomination. He wrote it in his spare time from his day job as an advertising firm account manager. He saw that thousands of "people were interested in hearing what I had to say, which is a terribly flattering thing to hear."

These days he pitches stories daily to about 40 to 50 conservative bloggers, and keeps 150 others in the loop. McCain is believed to be the only candidate who conducts weekly conversations with a group of 25-50 bloggers. Why? Because the Arizona senator has long had an "icy" relationship with conservative bloggers, mostly over his position on immigration and campaign finance reform. Plus, because some bloggers have readerships greater than those of small New Hampshire newspapers, McCain is reaching a politically active audience.

<snip>

Much more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/11/03/MNSFT5J6F.DTL

....not that there's anything wrong with that :toast: Go Dems.