Thursday, October 19, 2006

ontological breakthroughs

This morning CNN ran a snippit story about how the political arena is evolving to include the internet for campaigning and fundraising issues. They mentioned that a big percentage of people have gone to the internet for information and research before making a big decision in the past two years.

The Hater and I were surprised that the percentage was less than 75% (but I can't remember what the number was now). We were also surprised that someone thought this was a big enough story to take up air time in the morning... can people really be that ignorant about the impact of the internet on America?

They mentioned campaigning via the web. They questioned what would happen if people went to the internet to research political canidates. They talked about doing this as if it was something that Spock would suggest on Star Trek*... but this is exactly what The Hater and I did before voting in the last local election.

"Besides", The Hater added, "just seeing someone's name on a sign doesn't make me want to vote for them". I do not understand the purpose of having fifteen political canidate "name" signs on a single street corner. It's wasteful and polluting.

These times are a'changing, and I think it's going to be interesting to see the impact of the internet (and individual blogs) on the next set of national elections.

* Live long and prosper.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder if not having those stupid signs printed would actually stop someone from getting elected. I wish someone would be gutsy enough to try that out.

Vol Abroad said...

But surely the font they choose is an indication of character.

Cerulean Bill said...

In the last national election, my candidate's sign was stolen from my front yard. Try doing THAT with a virtual sign....