HOWARD WHO?:

Click The Vote: In the age of Internet politics, the Web can make or break a candidate (Stephen Baker, 3/29/04, Business Week)

As the eight-month Kerry-Bush marathon takes off, the President looks to extend his lead on the Net. The Republican Party, with its long history of direct-mail activism, has far more experience breaking its list into target groups, from tax hawks to pro-life activists. The plan is to solidify this base through the long campaign, adding e-mail names and tapping volunteers to call conservative radio stations, write letters to the editor, and knock on doors for the Bush ticket. The Republicans are even experimenting with instant messaging to create up-to-the-second links between small groups, says Max Fose, partner at consultancy Integrated Web Strategy.

The Democrats, by contrast, are struggling to catch up. The party, say insiders, relied heavily on its control of the White House to mobilize supporters during the '90s. When Terry McAuliffe took the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee in 2001, he found the tech system "nothing short of shocking," says one DNC tech leader. Kerry, who used the Web far less than Dean, faces a steep learning curve. Kerry has signed up only 33,000 volunteers online, according to his campaign spokeswoman Morra Aarons.

The most innovative Web approaches are likely to come from the networked activists. With campaign-finance reform stemming the flow of so-called soft money to the parties, much of the moolah goes straight to online advocacy groups. They can focus on a single message, a strategy that plays to the Web's strengths. And they innovate constantly. After country singer Willie Nelson released an antiwar song, Aaron Sain, a member of RightMarch.com, recorded Hey Hollywood, a conservative response in praise of President Bush. RightMarch sent a link to the song to its members, and some 20,000 downloaded it.

Even as the Web rises, TV remains the key to reaching undecided voters. According to TNS Media Intelligence/CMR, television spending this political season is expected to reach $1.1 billion, dwarfing the millions spent on the Web. Unlike the Net, TV reaches nearly every home in America. It has the power to grab the viewer's attention, and it offers far more compelling video than a broadband Net connection. "TV is still the most efficient. It interrupts you," says Robert M. Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, a research organization in Los Angeles. "But the Internet is far more cost-effective."

AND THE WEB IS GAINING GROUND. WHILE the growth of ad-zapping technology, such as TiVo (TIVO ), erodes the value of a TV ad, the Web's reach is growing. With the spread of broadband connections, candidates -- including the vast majority who can't afford to buy time on TV -- can speak directly to voters. "It's a godsend for candidates who literally wouldn't have a voice," says David M. Stone, a film producer in Philadelphia who created Web videos for long shot Garrett Gruener in the California recall election.

The Web also has a legal edge. It's not bound to the same election regulations as TV. A candidate who runs a hard-hitting ad against an opponent on television must take responsibility for it, in his own voice, sometime during the ad. No such requirement yet exists for Net ads. In February, the Bush team circulated its first attack ad against Kerry to its millions of online supporters -- minus the President's voice authorizing the message. The pace of Web ads is sure to pick up, especially in the last two months of the campaign, when political ads by advocacy groups on TV are prohibited. "It's going to be a wild last two months on the Web," says James F. Moore, senior fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Interesting that it took the Dean implosion for the press to recognize that it is actually the Bush campaign that is leading the way on the web.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 23, 2004 12:00 AM