Presidential Hopefuls Make Myspace Pages
@whiteheather39 (24403)
United States
March 19, 2007 6:05am CST
This is a big change from usual oversexed nutty things one sees on MySpace. Do you think it is a good idea? Would you use it to get information on candidates? I know I am going to give it a whirl and see what the candidates (or their publicity writers) think is interesting about them. Do you think this "tool" will harm or help their political race?
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Prospective voters eager to learn more about John McCain or to become an Internet "friend" of Barack Obama now have a new online opportunity. MySpace.com, the popular social networking site, on Sunday launched a section dedicated to the 2008 presidential election.
Called the Impact Channel, it's the latest attempt by an Internet company to educate voters by serving as an information hub for political candidates and the public.
By clicking onto impact.myspace.com, the site's mostly young users can link to the personal pages or "profiles" of 10 presidential hopefuls.
Democrats Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards, Joe Biden, and Dennis Kucinich have set up MySpace profiles. Republicans McCain, Rudolph Giuliani, Duncan Hunter, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul also have pages.
MySpace users will be able to read the candidates' blogs, see photos and video and, if they choose, link their favorite candidate to their friends list or put a candidate's ad onto their own pages."As the country's most trafficked Web site, MySpace will play a powerful role in the upcoming election," Chris DeWolfe, MySpace's chief executive said in a statement.
Earlier this month, the online video site YouTube launched a new section that allows candidates to feature their own video "channels" at no cost.
So far, some candidates' MySpace profiles appear more personal than others, and some were designed appeal to young people.
Kucinich's profile shows a picture of him with his wife and young children, along with audio instructions on how to pronounce his name.
Visitors to Romney's page can click and play Elvis Presley's "A Little Less Conversation." McCain tells MySpace users his favorite TV show is "24" and his favorite movie is "Viva Zapata."Obama's profile boasted more than 67,000 friends. It lists his status as "married," his occupation ("senator"), his ethnicity ("other") and zodiac sign ("Leo").
http://story.news.ask.com//article/20070319/D8NV2L5O0.html
2 people like this
5 responses
@irisheyes (4370)
• United States
19 Mar 07
I think this is a great idea but I probably won't have the time to check it out.
It will be interesting to see how the candidates use the internet this time around. It worked well for Dean the last time and John Kerry had a blog. I think there will be some heavy duty internet play in this next election. Maybe we can get a couple of them to put a thread on Mylot.
2 people like this
@prisidio (35)
• Canada
19 Mar 07
That actually wouldn't be a bad idea, it could be a good fund raiser for their campaign efforts as well, not to mention attract even more people to mylot.
I'm actually surprised about how written blogs seem to have been all but abandoned by many of the political campaigns with more of an emphasis being placed on v-logs/flash movies of candidates.
1 person likes this
@whiteheather39 (24403)
• United States
19 Mar 07
What an interesting suggestion. I know that Al Gore put a question on Yahoo's Q&A and got thousands of responses.
@prisidio (35)
• Canada
19 Mar 07
I still think the jury is out whether internet presence can actually make or break a campaign. As we've seen in the past with chracters such as Howard Dean, it sometimes isn't enough to have a good web presence you also have to be good on stage and have good relations with traditional media.
I remember reading a poll which suggests most people interested in politics still get the vast majority of their news from newspapers, as opposed to blogs or internet websites. If anything to me, this is telling that while it is good political candidate s are expanding their use of online resources, it isn't necessarily the best method to get elected. There are still quite a few people who are not internet savvy and therefore wouldn't use their computer to do research on political candidates, they also would still rely on traditional media resources.
Sites such as MySpace also cater primarily to younger people, under 18 years of age (the voting age) which I suppose is a good way to get young people more excited about the political process and perhaps even talk to their parents about it, but in the end they have little input come ballot time.
1 person likes this
@MntlWard (878)
• United States
19 Mar 07
There's certainly nothing wrong with it, and if all the candidates are using such nontraditional methods of campaigning, they might be able to be seen amid the hype about the minority candidates.
I have no real problem with Barack Obama being President, but since everyone's talking about him some other good candidates may have trouble getting exposure and funding.
@Smith2028 (797)
• United States
21 Mar 07
I think this is definately an interesting outlet. One of the biggest influences on elections is the 18-25 demographic. Traditionally, this age group does not get involved with the political arena.
However, with the uprising of all these new media "outlets" there is a chance to change this. I think it will have an impact if and only if it is used in conjunction with other methods to get the youth out to vote.
