I just can’t wait - this election season is going to be so good!  In an earlier post I wrote about how this election was going to shift to online video like never before.  This time, I wondered how many candidates had MySpace profiles and what they were doing with them.  Here is the “semi” official list of 2008 Presidential Candidates MySpace profiles. 

News Flash - The Democrats are Much More Popular Than the Republicans

                 19,000+                                     25,000+                                      1,110+

Not that MySpace is such a bastion of political thought and objectivity but “grassroots” has now become “webroot” campaigning and some of the candidates are taking to their profiles to get their message across.  The headline above is a slightly misleading because it is really Hillary Clinton’s, Barack Obama and John Edwards profiles that amount for most of the friends attached to any candidate profile. 

 Here is the list of current and considering candidates.  Not all of theses are the official profiles for the candidates with the ones that that are least likely to be officially sanctioned marked with a “**”.  If you have the links for the ones I could not find or the correct profiles, please email me.

Democratic Candidates (Announced & Considering) 56,000+ “Friends”

• Hillary Clinton (Sen. D-NY) :: MySpace Profile (19,000+ Friends)
  Barack Obama (Sen. D-IL) :: Myspace Profile (25,000+ Friends)
• Joseph Biden (Sen. D-De.) :: MySpace Profile (187 Firends)
• Christopher Dodd (Sen. D-CT) :: Myspace Profile ( 95+ Friends)
• John Edwards (Fmr Senator) :: MySpace Profile ( 10,000+ Friends)
• Mike Gravel (Former Senator) :: No MySpace Profile Found
• Dennis Kucinich (Rep. D-OH) :: MySpace Profile ( 649 Friends)
• Tom Vilsack (Former Gov.) :: MySpace Profile ( 1,100+ Friends)
• Bill Richardson (Gov. New Mexico) :: MySpace Profile ( 480+ Friends)

Republican Candidates (Announced & Considering) 5,550+ “Friends”

• John McCain (Sen. R-AZ) :: MySpace Profile ( 1,110+ Friends)
• Rudy Giuliani (Fmr Mayor NYC) :: MySpace Profile ( 1,200+) **
• Mitt Romney (Fmr Gov. MA) :: MySpace Profile ( 180+ Friends) **
• Tommy Thompson (Govenor WI) :: No MySpace Profile Found
• Sam Brownback (Sen. R-KS)  :: MySpace Profile ( 520+ Friends) **
• John Cox (Civilian) :: MySpace Profile ( 27 Friends)
• Duncan Hunter (Rep. R-CA) :: No MySpace Profile Found
• John Gilmore (Former Govenor) :: No MySpace Profile Found
• Ron Paul (Rep. R-PA) :: MySpace Profile ( 1,610+ Friends)**
• Tom Tancredo (Rep. R-CO) :: MySpace Profile ( 900+ Friends)

I’m not actually sure what the reference in the title is but it jumped into my head when I watched Hilary Clinton’s “I’m In” speech posted on the Hillary Clinton campaign website.  The amount of incremental press gained from announcing her entry into the 2008 US Presidential Election via an online video is huge.  As I am writing this post, one of the major cable networks is running a story on the “role of the Internet” in the upcoming election with her announcement as the centerpiece of the spot.

Hillary was not alone this week.  Earlier in the week Democratic rock-star Barack Obama also made an entry into the online video space via local broadband video start-up Brightcove (which made it’s own fireworks this week via another round of funding). 

Here is the part in the video, posted on both the Barak Obama website, YouTube and tagged on Gotuit, where Barack does not announce his candidacy but does announces that he will think about and get back to you on February 10th.  Not to be upstaged, Hillary announced here candidacy today…online.  

This election promises to be one that will have the online world, including all of the Web 2.0 sites that did not exist back in the 2004, be one of the main battlefields for the candidates and their supporters.  I suspect that the candidates will spend a decent amount of effort trying to ”out-web 2.0″ each other.

The interesting thing will be how the candidates on both sides will be handled on sites like Digg, YouTube and others.  It is pretty certain that social media sites are very “left” leaning in bias so my bet is that the Dem’s will fair better online than their Republican counterparts.

This new interest in using the Internet as a platform for political campaigning almost makes Dean look like a maverick?

Today’s move by Hillary officially opens the 2008 campaign season and the hunt is going to be televised in a whole new way.  I just hope that my Apple TV shows up in time for the good stuff.

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