bytes and ballots

In a sign of how national candidates are viewing new technology as a campaign medium, I found it quite interesting to see that Hillary Clinton last week used the Internet to announce her initial interest in running for president on the Internet. She follows both Barack Obama and John Edwards in using the Internet to announce their intentions. I suspect this signals what will be a heightened use of the Internet in the 2008 presidential campaign. There's was a short story in the Los Angeles Times yesterday that talked about Clinton's use of the Internet.

Exactly why the Internet is become such a popular forum for announcing presidential intentions is not clear: perhaps it has something to do with the ability to get the word into the hands of targeted supporters, and perhaps it has something to do with staying away from the free media and their propensity to ask questions that candidates don't want to answer. But I do suspect this will signal an increased Internet presence for all presidential hopefuls in the 2008 cycle.