Web campaigning hot

By Nicole Warburton
Deseret Morning News
Published: Thursday, Nov. 2, 2006 12:02 p.m. MST
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Running for elected office? Want a quick way to reach a young demographic, raise funds, gather volunteers or give an unfettered opinion?

Go online.

While 2004 was considered the "breakthrough" year of the Internet, with all the attention from Howard Dean's online fund-raising efforts, political pundits say this election cycle is showing a greater trend toward candidates using the Web to campaign.

Pete Ashdown, a Democrat and founder of Internet provider XMission, has gained national media attention this fall because he created a MySpace page to help with his campaign against Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Other big-ticket candidates have turned to blogging, or have used groups of college-age supporters on social networking sites like Facebook to campaign.

There's also YouTube, a Web site for video-sharing. The Utah Republican Party sent out a news release this week complaining about an advertisement that the state Democratic Party posted on YouTube that accused GOP legislative leaders and the governor of being liars and spendthrifts.

Leslie Lewis, a 3rd District judge in Utah, has also garnered attention from a YouTube video that shows her berating a local man about hunting and expressing her bias against hunting.

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"We could talk about blogging, YouTube, MySpace — these are all very innovative, really radical ways of campaigning that, even now, I don't find in my textbook," said Tim Chambless, a University of Utah political scientist who is teaching a class about campaigning. His textbook for the class has a 2006 copyright.

"We're coming up to it (this election) with new technology," he said.

It's not just candidates for the U.S. Senate or House who are using the Internet. Candidates for state legislative seats and school boards are also doing so. This year, 214 candidates are running for seats in the Utah Legislature. All those candidates were given a chance to answer a survey from the Deseret Morning News.

A total of 44 candidates filled out the survey in its entirety, but 103 posted a link to their Web site. The surveys can be found at deseretnews.com, under a link titled "Legislative survey."

Sen. Scott McCoy, D-Salt Lake, said his Web site, www.SenatorMcCoy.com, is "critical" to his campaign. McCoy is being challenged by Joe Jarvis in Senate District 2. Jarvis, a Republican, has a daily podcast on his Web site, drjoejarvis.com.

"It's such a useful tool in providing people information about who you are as a candidate," McCoy said. "It's kind of a virtual campaign headquarters, if you will."

McCoy said it cost him $500 to set up his Web site. Jarvis said it cost him $35 to get a domain name. A volunteer has designed his site.

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