Campaign sites just don't click
If anything has characterized Campaign 2008 - aside from its "War and Peace"-like length - it is the ham-handed use of the Internet. In 2004, the Howard Deaniacs were the first pols to successfully exploit the Web, as far as it went. In 2006, Ned Lamont used the Internet to mount a political insurgency in Connecticut that was ultimately steamrolled by Joe Lieberman's politics as usual.
Now every hack in God's creation is using the Web, and most use it badly. The presidential candidates spring for high-octane websites for two reasons: first, because their consultants tell them they have to; and second, because it is a relatively low-cost vacuum cleaner for hoovering up small donations.
If your politics skew liberal, it must be some consolation that the major Republican candidates remain more clueless about the Net than the Democrats. "The [Barack] Obama and the [John] Edwards campaigns are by far the most innovative in embracing the culture of the Internet," explains Andrew Rasiej , the cofounder of techpres ident.com. Overall, he notes that "the Democrats are just as afraid of the Internet as the Republicans." The exceptional Internet candidate in his view: former Texas congressman Dr. Ron Paul.
I signed up to receive e-mails from the Hillary Clinton campaign when they were first offered last year. The comic payoff has been immense. I have received videos of fake "interviews" from her Chappaqua, N.Y., living room where she answers focus-group "questions" with all the warmth and charisma of a Stepford Wife. This year alone the campaign has sent me at least 30 pieces of delicious spam, including several messages from husband Bill, with subject lines like "Mind If I Drop In?" or "You, Me, a TV, and a Bowl of Chips."
He's such a tease!
The most important line in any Clinton e-mail is "Click here to make a contribution." And many do: $8 million of the campaign's $27 million raised in the second quarter came from the Internet.
I didn't miss John Edwards's folksy "webisodes," back when they were still posted on his official website late last year. They were self-consciously unscripted, with Edwards complaining about his professional handlers, and about his "Ken doll" image on the campaign trail. As Arthur Branch - the cornpone district attorney played by Fred Thompson on "Law & Order" - might say: When a super-successful plaintiff's lawyer says he is really leveling with you, that's when you check that your wallet is still in your back pocket.
The Mitt Romney for president website has attracted considerable ridicule for its ridiculous "Five Brothers" blog, in which our former governor's offspring - you remember: the ones serving their country by angling for the White House rather than serving in the military, as their father thuddishly explained - gush on and on about life with Ozzie and Harriet. In an effort to corner the market in digital squareheads, the campaign just added ann romney.com, allowing our former first lady to offer "an insider's view, of behind the scenes of what it's like inside the campaign." And recipes.
Just like public radio websites, most of the campaigns have online stores. Fred Thompson is winning the battle of the gear, featuring "I'm With Fred" thermal mugs, golf balls, tote bags, and what looks like a quickie book, "The Fred Factor." Rudy Giuliani is hawking a $79.95, signed Louisville Slugger baseball bat, which for me is a too-vivid reminder of his "Giuliani time" crime-fighting escapades in the 1990s. Google "Abner Louima" if you were still in school at the time.
The Web gives, and the Web takes away. Slate magazine recently used a tool called Google Suggests to find out what Internet surfers really wanted to know about the presidential candidates. More people searched for "Elizabeth Kucinich hot" than for "Joe Biden bio," natch. Googlers searched for the sultry, hilarious "Obama Girl" video parody 3.2 million times, far outpacing the 2.4 million searches for "Hillary Clinton health care." More people search for "Hillary Clinton cleavage" than for Mike Huckabee's biography.
But you knew that.
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.
