With a year and a half to go in the ’08 cycle, the idea of presidential candidates using the Internet is big news today, apparently. Eugene Robinson has a clever column today in the Washington Post, in which he compares the web sites of Clinton, Edwards, and Obama. I think he got it mostly right; … Read more
Lee Rainie and John Horrigan have released the latest in their series of insightful reports about the impact of Internet use on politics. This report (covered by Frank Davies of the Merc) examines political activity and information access online during the 2006 campaign cycle. Good news for those focusing on digital natives and their use … Read more
The Sunlight Foundation has kindly chosen the Berkman Center at HLS as the venue for an all-day session today, “Political Information in an Internet Era.” We’re grateful to a dedicated group of civic activists who join us today on their holiday. The frame for the event, as Zephyr Teachout and her team put it, is … Read more
One of the questions that’s always bothered me is why candidates who use the Internet to get elected seem to use the Internet much less effectively as they are governing. Deval Patrick, governor-elect in Massachusetts, and Tim Murray, the lieutenant governor-elect, are off to the right start in this regard. They’ve established a transition web … Read more
The Personal Democracy Forum has published a compilation of reax from Internet & politics types about what the 2006 cycle in the United States can tell us. You should always listen to Ethan Zuckerman (“there’s always something to talk about in an election”) and Chuck DeFeo (a consistently insightful commentator on the GOP’s use of … Read more
We’ve just gathered a key subset of our global team of ONI researchers to review the filtering data we’ve gathered from around the world. WIRED’s Mark Anderson sat in on part of the meetings and has a sneak peek. We’ll have a book out on this topic come Springtime.
Great initial news from CIRCLE: voter turnout among young people is way up in 2006. Hopefully it is a trend in the making. From their news release: “An estimated ten million young Americans under the age of 30 voted in Tuesday’s midterm elections, an increase of at least two million compared to 2002, according to … Read more
Confetti is still being swept up from the halls of Democratic victory parties across the country. In Massachusetts, the celebration has been a long time in coming. The election of Deval Patrick as governor — a first of several important kinds — is a shot in the arm to those tired of a state managed … Read more
We’re delighted to welcome anyone blogging the vote today at the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School. The Blue Mass Group team have taken us up on it, live and in person, along with others swinging by, which is terrific. Seth Flaxman of Demapples was here until he had class. Anyone and everyone of any … Read more
The Independent candidate for governor of Massachusetts, Christy Mihos, is typosquatting at http://www.kerryhealy.com. His Republican opponent, Kerry Healey (note the extra “e”), must not be too amused. The people of Massachusetts aren’t in too much danger of actually electing Mr. Mihos in November — the race is plainly between Healey and the Democratic nominee, Deval … Read more