Here’s some good conference-blogging by the Political State Report at a conference I would have liked to attend this week:
The Director of Internet Strategy for Kerry-Edwards ’04 says that “the 2004 campaign ‘will be the first – and last – campaign to have specific internet teams doing internet operations,’ and that future campaigns will see net-savvy people seamlessly involved with all aspects of campaign operations.”
Someone from CTSG says the “four major outcomes of internet campaigns in 2004: interactivity, segmentation, community (‘the story of 2004, there is no longer one-way communication in modern campaigns’) and money. She says that the most changed aspect of internet campaigning is the two-way communication aspect, and that successful campaigns will seek to involve the voter in the ‘conversation.'”
And an FEC commissioner said “that the 2004 election season may be the last where an internet or media consultant can do work for both issue advocacy organizations and individual candidate campaigns.”
This panel discussion also addressed the issue of whether a blogger linking to a campaign website constitutes a contribution to the campaign. A pretty radical notion.