Dot-com Democrats

Presidential wannabes from Alaska to Connecticut are testing a new campaign theorem: All politics is social.

Following the trail blazed by Howard Dean in 2003, at least five of the nine would-be Democratic nominees are incorporating MySpace, Facebook (registration required) and other social networks into their campaigns. In fact, many are taking a shotgun approach to the Internet, posting links to an array of sites in the hope of spreading buzz about their candidate to the far corners of the World Wide Web, if not the world itself.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's site, for instance, directs visitors to the candidate's pages on four social networks, including MySpace, where they can find snapshots of more than 480 of his "friends," and Zanby, where there can join any of 58 support groups scattered around the country. Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, in addition to lining up friends on MySpace and Facebook, is trying to create a conversation of sorts through videos posted on YouTube (no takers so far). And former North Carolina senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards, who has racked up a party-leading 10,000 MySpace "friends," is deploying a customized social network, dubbed OneCorps, to mobilize supporters behind a series of projects in their communities.

The nine Republicans in the race are taking a more buttoned-down approach. Their sites include no links to social networks, viral video outlets or other sites outside the candidate's control. Instead, they focus on the meat and potatoes of campaigning - raising money and manpower - while posting little beyond a biography, some position statements, snippets of news coverage and maybe a video of their candidate in action.  (Other sites include Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo's -- not to be confused with the tomtancredo.com site controlled by some anti-Tancredo types -- and Texas Rep. Ron Paul's, which is still under construction. Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore doesn't appear to have an official site yet, just an unofficial one.)

That's not surprising, given the GOP's knack for campaign discipline. When candidates embrace sites such as MySpace and YouTube, they sacrifice some discipline and control in exchange for energy, creativity and a powerful network to distribute their message for free. The obvious risk is that someone in the loose-knit confederation will do something intemperate or offensive that embarrasses the candidate. That's what happened to Democrat John Kerry in 2004 when one of the interest groups supporting him, MoveOn.org, briefly showcased a volunteer's ad that likened President Bush to Hitler.

Perhaps that's why the Democrats' best-known candidates - Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York, Barack Obama of Illinois and Joe Biden of Delaware, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio - are avoiding social networks and using more conventional online tools to recruit supporters and dollars. Clinton, for instance, has invited the public to post blog entries on her site, and she's done three short question-and-answer sessions online. But these interactions, like everything else on the site, are carefully managed by the campaign.

Still, in the era of YouTube and cellphone video, candidates have less control over their image and message than ever before. And for underdog candidates, every bit of help counts - especially when it's free. By setting up shop on MySpace, YouTube and other popular Web outlets, candidates may extend their reach beyond political junkies into, well, Internet junkies. And as Arizona Sen. John McCain and Dean showed in 2000 and 2004, when networks of supporters spread online, millions of dollars follow.

Of course, neither man won his party's nomination, let alone the presidency. Meanwhile, other candidates - most notably former Virginia Sen. George Allen - have demonstrated the ability of user-generated, viral video to undermine their campaigns. Over the next year and a half, we'll see whether the Internet's social tools can make a candidate as well as it can break one.

Below is a sample of the Democrats' activity on YouTube. Like Clinton and Obama, the Republican candidates host their own videos; click here to check out former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's collection, which is powered by PermissionTV.