The Web remains an afterthought for candidates, and that's unlikely to change anytime soon. This year is marked by more malaise than most. During the Iowa caucuses this week, only about 150,000 people participated. That's a lot lower than the 230,000 who took part in 1988, the last comparable year. And it's a tiny percent of the 2.1 million Iowans who could participate if they chose.
Technology plays an even smaller role in Iowa than most other states.
The actual meetings are usually held in traditional community centers like schools, churches, and libraries, in a process that hasn't changed in decades. So it should come as no surprise that few Americans care more about the Nasdaq index than political Web sites, at least so far. One new site called netelection.org hopes to change that, in part by providing a place for pols to find out more about the Net in campaigns. It's a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Online voters know their medium well and are easily offended when content is simply shoveled over from other media.