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Opinion

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Christian Ochoa
Opinion Columnist

Unlike presidential elections in the past, where candidates traveled the country giving stump speeches, more candidates have delved into a more electric sphere. While the 2004 election marked the beginning of Web logs for campaigning, the 2008 election will feature something more innovative: the ever-popular MySpace. 

MySpace launched a special section dedicated to presidential hopefuls on Sunday, CNN.com reported. The Impact Channel features the MySpace profiles of all 10 of the presidential hopefuls, including Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, and Republicans John McCain, Rudolph Giuliani and Mitt Romney. 

Users of the Web site can read the blogs of the presidential hopefuls, see videos of the candidates and possibly add them as "friends." 

This isn't a new thing, though. Political hopefuls marketed themselves on Facebook during the last election. 

Obviously, the tactic is an attempt to attract a younger audience to this election, perhaps picking up where the Rock the Vote campaign left off during the 2004 election. But whether networking sites will be more effective in getting young voters to the polls remains to be seen.

Most eligible voters have a limited knowledge of where candidates stand on certain issues -- especially the youth voting block. It is a little ridiculous that presidential candidates have resorted to MySpace, but in an era where technology dominates life, it's only reasonable to expect it to be linked with politics. 

It's petty, though, that some candidates must add you so can you see their information. 

Some of the profiles do make the candidates seem more personable. Dennis Kucinich's profile features an instructional video on how to pronounce his last name. Romney's profile song is "A Little Less Conversation" by Elvis Presley, and McCain lists his heroes, interests and his favorite book, For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, and favorite TV show, 24.

It does seem odd that presidential candidates chose to associate themselves with MySpace, a Web site notorious for being a playground for predators. But hey, it's still popular with young adults, so why not. 

This is already shaping up to be an interesting campaign season. Candidates announced their presidential bids earlier than ever, and some states are pushing their legislatures to schedule primaries earlier. 

But if anything new emerges from this frontier of political marketing, it's a new ring: Candidates can duke it out with each other to see who has the most friends. 

If you're curious, Obama is leading the pack with more than 69,000 friends. 

Ochoa, a creative writing junior, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu