From the Wall Street Journal:
Nearly a year before the first caucuses and primaries take place, the 2008 presidential campaign advertising war is under way online.
Candidates of both parties are already buying space on search engines, blogs and other Internet sites popular with political junkies and potential donors. With 18 candidates vying for the most open race for the White House in 80 years and front-runners on both sides announcing plans to forgo public financing, the 2008 election promises to be a huge revenue opportunity, not just for TV broadcasters.
"There's a blog primary going on right now," says Henry Copeland, founder of Blogads, a North Carolina-based advertising service which automates the process of placing ads on blogs in exchange for a 30% cut of the revenue.
But this year's campaign Web pioneers are already beginning to run into uncharted zones. Some online activists get offended if they think a candidate is paying for ads on Internet sites of the wrong political stripe. And some smaller, locally influential blogs have gotten miffed at being passed over.
One of the most aggressive online campaigners has been the former Democratic senator from North Carolina John Edwards, who hired several full-time bloggers and began advertising on political blog sites in December.
On the Republican side, Arizona Sen. John McCain has run prominent ads on conservative sites including Townhall.com and National Review's "The Corner" blog. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney took out ads this week on conservative blogs, including "Outside the Beltway" and "Captain's Quarters," directing potential supporters to his Web site. The campaign was part of a promotional effort tied to his formal announcement yesterday in a suburb of Detroit.
As in the 2006 campaign, candidates are also already placing ads on Google, sometimes paying to have their ads appear when a search is done on a competitor's name. A search of "Rudy Giuliani" on Google yesterday returned not only an ad linking to the former New York mayor's official campaign Web site but ads linking to Messrs. Romney and McCain.
This early in a primary season, presidential contenders historically just compete for campaign staff and money. This year, they are competing for online support as well.
Naturally, read the whole story.
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