Yesterday, the New York Times (reg. req.) ran an op-ed by Matthew Hindman of the National Center for Digital Government at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (How the Web Will Change Campaigns). The main argument of the article is that campaigners will often take more partisan positions on their websites then they will through other media. For example, both parties' candidates may run ostensibly as centrists, but their websites will stake out far more conservative or liberal positions. The reason, according to Hindman, is that the audience for the websites tends to be the more enthusiastic and partisan party members. However, this is rather short-sighted. The Web cannot be walled off from other media. If a candidate puts something that offends a large number of voters on their website it will come back to haunt them.
Earlier this year, the Democratic Party National Committee put a flash commercial on their website that showed a cartoon version of President Bush pushing an old woman in a wheelchair off a cliff (Social Insecurity [FLASH]). The resulting and relatively minor controversy surrounding the cartoon was covered by the television networks. And need I mention a new media source *cough*blogs*cough* that ferrets out and broadcasts precisely this sort of news? The Web is going to change campaigns, but not the way Hindman argues.