Catching up with social networking

Leslie Sanchez:

Ever since John McCain and Howard Dean in 2000 showed the Internet's potential for fundraising, the question was always whether the Web could be effective at "GOTV," or getting-out-the-vote.

Among young voters at least, Barack Obama has proven that it can -- and, in the process, he's uncovered a major flaw that cuts to the core of the Republicans' approach to party organization and discipline.

Obama poured many of his campaign's millions into his social networking operations on the Web, which his campaign rightly saw as critical to building grassroots support and enthusiasm.

A community organizer by training, occupation and nature, Obama saw his databases for the potential they represented -- an army of supportive voices, a legion of potential volunteers, and a division of precinct captains.

Such is the world not just of Chicago ward organizations, but of politics everywhere.

The McCain campaign, reflecting the broader skepticism I've seen in the GOP about the Web, doubted whether the Internet could get voters out of their Barcaloungers (or, in the case of younger voters, off their futons) and into the polling booth.

Michael Palmer, McCain's Internet director during the primaries, told ABCNews.com last June that if Obama's online efforts "don't have an endgame political benefit, then they don't help you at the end of the day."

On Tuesday, Obama showed the Republicans the Internet's endgame.

On Facebook alone, Obama signed up 2.4 million users as supporters, compared with just 624,000 for McCain. A Facebook virtual ticker challenged users to actually go out to the polls, and clocked more than 1 million by noon on Election Day and 5 million by the time all the polls closed.

According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University, the number of voters under 30 rose by 3.4 million compared with 2004.

About 66 percent of those voters supported Obama, compared with 32 percent for McCain. By contrast, the overall voting population gave Obama a much narrower margin of victory -- 53 percent to 46 percent.

...

I have been an early adapter on the internet for around 20 years. I am on Facebook for what it worth and I don't find it to be worth that much. I wish Sanchez could point out how having a big group of friends on a social networking site makes one a better candidate as opposed to whether it is just another way of measuring a popularity in a particular demographic that already exist.

Maybe I am just too busy blogging to get it. I know I did not make my political decision based on how many friends any candidate had on Facebook. That seems like a pretty uninformed way to make an important decision.