Hillary Clinton's Internet Director, Peter Daou, & His Team --->>>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/03/AR2007050302546_pf.html

At Clinton headquarters in Arlington, integration means that Daou, who leads the Internet department's staff of 10, is considered a senior staffer but answers to the communications director. Daou reports to Howard Wolfson, who reports to Patti Solis Doyle, Clinton's campaign manager.

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/07/on_the_download_32.html

July 30, 2007
On The Download: Million Dollar Web Campaigns
It's time to welcome Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney to the million-dollar club, as both presidential candidates have now spent at least $1 million on their Internet operations so far this year.

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Hillary Clinton
Firms ($1,207,730 total): NGP Software, Inc ($700,725), Mayfield Strategies ($507,005).
Staff ($178,400 total): Jesse Berney, Peter Daou, Nancy Eiring, Sarah Foy*, Recardo Gibson*, Jess O'Connell*, Crystal Patterson, Kevin Thurman.
Minimum total: $1,386,130.

http://www.ontimefundraiser.com/index.php?mod=news&cmd=article&id=2

In 2004, the Dean camp and its followers used MeetUp to connect supporters; now, there’s MySpace, Facebook, Second Life and Eventful. Campaigns increasingly mine these social networks in an effort to connect with new voters.

And while some candidates would earlier want to get in touch with DailyKos, with its vast readership, they now also know that if they roll out a health care plan, for example, that the campaigns need to make sure those proposals find their way onto health blogs, Mr. Trippi said. Peter Daou, the Internet campaign director for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, pointed to the message boards on AARP’s Web site, for example, as proof of another audience, or the readership of UrbanBaby.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0507/3933.html

“To most bloggers, authenticity is an important criterion. There is an allergic reaction to hypercautious politicians,” The Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington wrote in an e-mail. “Hillary Clinton’s problem with the blogosphere is that she has been so calculating that you can smell it. Every thought has been processed through multiple channels in her and her consultants’ brains. It’s so fabricated.”

Exacerbating this criticism is Clinton’s standing as an inside-the-Beltway politician. Her employment of high-profile consultants such as pollster Mark Penn has drawn the condemnation of the blog community that sees this as the root cause of her cautious politicking. Most bloggers shun the label “anti-establishment.” But many blame the D.C.-insider, consultant-based method of campaigning that Clinton is utilizing for the Democrats’ (recently ended) political dry spell.

What effect opinions like these will have on the primary or general elections is unclear. In an April 2007 Daily Kos poll, Clinton received only 3 percent of the site users’ support. And yet, a Cook/RT Strategies national poll around the same time had her winning 36 percent of the potential Democratic vote.

Even veterans of online politics caution against overvaluing the blogosphere’s significance. “Candidates have been obsessing about bloggers and ignoring their base,” said Zack Exley, director of online organizing and communications for the 2004 John Kerry campaign. “The candidates need to make a direct connection with their base and turn that base on and get the $100 million.”

Clinton has made her share of plays for blogosphere support. She hired as her blog adviser Peter Daou, who in 2004 was the Kerry presidential campaign’s director of online response and blog outreach. She also brought onboard Jesse Berney, a prominent liberal blogger who worked for four years at the Democratic National Committee writing and editing Web and e-mail content.