According to Eugene Robinson in today's Washington Post, the websites of these three Democratic Presidential contenders tell us something about their namesakes:
Clinton's site evokes a super-competent juggernaut, with every base covered and every hair in place. Obama's is very much a work in progress. And Edwards's Web site suggests the patience, attention to detail and willingness to take risks that you would expect from a trial lawyer who rose from nothing to become a self-made millionaire.Clinton and Obama are first-name candidates on their sites -- "Hillary" says this, "Barack" says that. Edwards is more formal -- he's "John Edwards" or "Senator Edwards," if you please...
All in all, Robinson seems most impressed with Edwards' site, describing it as a "deep, 'sticky' Web site with tons of multimedia offerings and a destination-quality blog." ("deep?" "sticky?" are these newpaper reporters finally starting to get blog savvy? nice). Robinson adds:
Edwards's Web site is less YouTube than MySpace. It tries to take advantage of the Internet's great paradox -- that a technology so devoid of human contact can nevertheless create a sense of intimacy and connection.
That's an interesting point about the internet; namely, how do you create a real sense of community in a medium that allows for - even encourages - anonymity? Well, one thing you do is give up some control. For instance, Daily Kos (and RK) are community blogs, which means that the "owners" don't control all, or even most, of the conent that appears there. This has been a source, apparently, of unending confusion (real or feined) to right-wing bloggers and even to campaigns themselves.
For instance, in an excruciatingly convoluted chain of logic last year, the Allen campaign at one ponit attacked Jim Webb for taking money from people who read Daily Kos. The Allen folks cited the "craziest" comments they could find on Daily Kos, taking them completely out of context and - of course - not mentioning that the comments were just a few out of tens of thousands. They also failed to mention that the comments were NOT by Markos himself, nor by any other "front pagers."
Apparently, such is life in the new age of increasingly netroots-oriented politics. As Robinson writes:
In just about every realm of human activity I can think of, the Internet matters more now than it did five minutes ago...I can't think of any reason that politics should be exempt.