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Internet Campaigns

© Caroline Baker

In the 2000 presidential election in the United States, there were a few snide remarks that came about when candidate Gore proclaimed, "I created the Internet." While the it didn't seem to sway many voters one way or the other, it did signify a change in the importance of this technology in politics. For perhaps the first time in political history, both candidates emphasized this specific technology, thus establishing the importance of the Internet beyond just a leisure tool.

It curious to note during that election that while both candidates used the Internet and the Worldwide Web to spread information, it was actually a third-party candidate that used it to successfully campaign. In the eyes of someone who is active on the Internet, their websites were dead. It was more of a place to store documents and copy speeches than really providing the readers with something unique and enlightening.

A third-party, the Green Party, actually used the Internet to exchange with its members the status of voting in each state. And though I don't agree with what was done, they actually agreed to "trade" votes for other candidates via the Internet in hopes that this would make an impact for their party. This became part of the grassroots effort to reform and change the way our politics work.

It became clear at the end of the election that while the Green party didn't accomplish what they set out to do, get a third party officially recognized on the ballot, their efforts did raise a lot of concern in the political world. And their efforts did open up new avenues of dealing with campaigning.

Because of this, I had hoped to see changes with the coming elections as to how they dealt with Internet information. Unfortunately, it seems that if anything, the Internet has been abandoned as a source of information. Many candidates only had a page off of the main party's page, at best. Some didn't even have a website. Little changed with the information posted there or the content it could provide the public.

When I started this article, I did a search on the Internet to find out how many other countries put their political candidates online. I found few sites at best which shared with its people information from the government. Most were unchanged for great lengths of time.

Some may say that it's the apathy that we feel these days towards politics in general that has made these and other campaigning strategies fall on deaf ears. Others say its because politics is run by the old and the Internet by the young. Still others believe that the Internet just isn't the right source of information and no one wants to spend time reading things online.

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