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salon.com
According to an article in today's Wall Street Journal, there is currently a "blog primary"on for the eighteen candidates that are thus far vying for Presidential office.
Many of the leading candidates, instead of spending this time solely courting donors and staff, have also begun to cultivate online supporters.
As has been previously noted here at ETP, John Edwards was early in (and out) of this strange new online world (strange and/or new to politicians at least) when he hired bloggers to work for his campaign.
Some candidates are currently taking another route to the unchartered realms of the blogsphere, purchasing ad space not only on popular blog sites but purchasing Google ads set to appear under search terms of opposing candidates. For example, under the search term "Rudy Giuliani" links will appear to sites for Mitt Romney or John McCain.
Here at ETP we tested it out. "Rudy Giuliani" did indeed result in ad-links to Romney and McCain's websites (as well as for something called Mesothelioma...?) . Search terms Mitt Romney and John McCain had similar results.
The Democrats, however, appear to be late to this game. A search for "Hillary Clinton" came up with nothing more leading than an anti-hillary site . And heavy media hitter Barack Obama, aka the most searched name on the blogsphere right now, provided only Barack focused links. (C'mon people, this should be a no-brainer).
Even if he does decide to pursue this strategy, John Edwards may have the hardest time re-directing traffic (or being used to that end)as a "John Edwards" search currently results in a number of ads for the psychic of the same name (minus the "s"). On second thought, this could be a useful tool for anyone trying to predict the outcome of "the most open race for the White House in 80 years". Palm reading, anyone?
Related: Candidates Find A New Stump In the Blogosphere [WSJ]
