In 2006, David Cameron famously described Gordon Brown as an 'analogue politician in a digital age'. It's an image painted consistently by the opposition - a man out of touch with the pace of change. Whatever the merits of these allusions, a similar dynamic seems to be playing out in the US, between Obama and McCain.

In June last year Niamh, Molly and I visited the PDF Conference 2007 in New York, organised by the Personal Democracy Forum. (You can read about our trip here and here.)

It was themed around the ways technology is changing politics, and there was a focus even then on the 2008 presidential campaigns. The feeling was there was a real chance for a candidate to embrace technology like never before, and in doing so, take a big advantage over their rivals. Barack's campaign has so far seemed determined to be a working demonstration of how right this was. He stole a big lead on Hillary Clinton through linking online, grassroots organising with higher political strategising. Will that advantage carry over into the Presidential race proper?

This year's Conference found some coverage in the Guardian today, for a session featuring the internet strategists from the major Presidentail candidates. There seem to be two main points, with relevance not only for the US elections but how politicians use technology generally:

1. McCain is struggling to prove that he 'gets' the internet. And that doesn't mean that he wants to show he can spend all day commenting on Vloggers. Interestingly, Obama hasn't simply created 'fly on the wall' style video. He's largely created the environment where other people are willing to create content, campaign and get involved by themselves. It's not Ask Barack or WebObama, but simple tools people can use. The trick, like with most recent succesful online creations, was making people want to do things themselves.

2. But the Presidential campaign will be where we see whether tech-enhanced campaigning can have a real influence over political decision making. Will Obama's one million Facebok friends be part of a success story for a Presidential race proper?

If you want to follow the conference, or catch up on some of the presentations, there's predictably plenty of content to help you do so here.

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