ReadWriteWeb

VoterVoter.com is a new web site from advertising firm WideOrbit, which manages $10 billion worth of advertising on 950 TV, radio, and cable stations in the US, that brings the dirty game of campaign attacks ads directly to the people. Billing themselves as "a non-partisan political advertising service" that was founded to "further democratize the political process," what it really is is a way for any Tom, Dick, or Larry with a couple of thousand bucks to do what 527 organizations do every election cycle: play dirty politics.

The Republican nominating contest for President of the United States is all but sewn up -- Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee are footnotes and with 256 GOP delegates at stake today, John McCain may have enough pledged delegates to have his party's nomination in hand by morning. The Democratic contest, however, is still close and all-important primaries today in Texas and Ohio (and important-but-less-so elections in Vermont and my own home state of Rhode Island) could decide the fate of that party's nominee. Yesterday I had a chance to talk with Isaac Garcia, CEO of Central Desktop, whose software is being used by the Obama campaign to manage field operations in Texas.

There's no question this year that Barack Obama and Ron Paul are the kings of US politics on the Internet. They both command the lion's share of their party's attention online and seem to dominate social networking and social media sites. So why is only one of those campaigns actually working? How come only Obama has been able to translate his online success to success at the polls? We thought we'd take a brief look today at the Obama campaign and why it has been successful, while citizens in 24 US states head to the polls as part of "Super Tuesday."

UPDATE: Also check out Keeping Tabs on Super Tuesday, our guide to following Super Tuesday via the Internet.

I went out to dinner last night, and when I came home and switched on my TV, John McCain had already won the Republican primary in New Hampshire. But on the Democratic side, it was too close to call -- just about 2300 votes separated Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, with the college town of Hanover still left to count. After I watched McCain's speech, I went downstairs to my office, and things were still too close to project a winner. I got absorbed in something and forgot to turn on the TV, but I kept my eye on a new site called Politweets.

The use of social networking and web-based organizing tools in politics has been a major story over the past year (in fact, we named it as our 6th most important story of 2007). Tonight, when a number of Iowans gather to decide who they think should represent the two major US political parties in the upcoming presidential election, we will begin to see if all that web campaigning paid off.