Issue date: 2/5/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Chad Stoermer [Click to enlarge]

The presidential candidates don't just want young people to vote for them in November. They want to be added as a friend.

In the hopes of joining in on the growth of social networking, presidential hopefuls have taken their campaigns to Facebook, MySpace and YouTube to gain the attention and support of younger voters - and hopefully their vote, too.

So far, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is the most popular online. On Facebook, where all of the candidates have profiles, Obama has 250,333 friends. It's 120,000 more than his nearest opponent, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who has 75,159. Following closely in third, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, is actually one of the dark horses of the race, falling toward the bottom of the polls. Yet he has 74,254 friends - much more than any of his Republican counterparts.

Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has taken the social networking aspect of his campaign to another level: McCainSpace. His version of MySpace, launched in February 2007, allows users to create their own website, communicate with other supporters and find ways to get involved with the campaign.

The Internet - and social networking, in particular - has become an easy, but politically profitable way to reach young voters, said Aaron Smith, a researcher for the Pew Internet and American Life Project, in Washington, D.C. "I think it's a low impact, low opportunity cost way to make candidates more approachable," Smith said.

Originally, the Internet was an arm of a campaign used to add a little information about a candidate. Now, Smith says, it's the primary method to reach the desired younger vote.

"That's the milieu they operate in," he said. "That's where a large bloc of voters are." Smith added: "You're not necessarily going to reach these people by running an ad on 'NBC Nightly News.'"

He referenced a study released Jan. 11 by the Internet and American Life Project and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which found that 42 percent of Americans 18 to 29 learn about campaigns from the Internet. It's doubled since 2004, when that figure was 20 percent.

Continued...

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