WEB CAMPAIGNS

November 3, 1998
		From fundraising to online concerts, more and more candidates have turned to the Internet for campaign purposes. Media correspondent Terence Smith looks at how some candidates have used the Web as a campaign tool.

Online NewsHour Special Report: Stumping Online Oct. 28, 1998: NewsHour coverage of the New York Senate race Oct. 22, 1998: Discussion of campaign ads with media experts. Oct. 22, 1998: RealAudio and RealVideo versions of some campaign ads. Oct. 19, 1998: A discussion on lawyers who appear on TV. Sept. 30, 1998: Have journalists become too dependent on anonymous sources? Sept. 22, 1998: How did the press handle the president's grand jury appearance? Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Election '98 and Media issues.     Campaign Web Review Web, White and Blue PoliticsOnline Vote Smart	TERENCE SMITH: At a beachfront barbecue in Panama City, Florida, the Oak Ridge Boys are warming up the crowd for Republican gubernatorial candidate Jeb Bush. JEB BUSH: Thank you all. Thank you so much. What a great crowd. Thank you so much.
	Brave new world.
	TERENCE SMITH: A campaign aide recorded the event on a digital camera. Later that night, the latest "photos from the road" were posted on the "Jeb site," the candidate's continuously updated, state-of-the-art Web page. JEB BUSH: I get 200 e-mail messages a day. Someone is downloading my computer right now as we speak. I'll get back on the bus, and I will see what's going on around the rest of the state. TERENCE SMITH: Welcome to the world of cyber-campaigning -- the new era of virtual politics, where everything is eventually converted into something dot.com. MIKE CONNELL: Really, 1998 is the defining year for the Internet in politics. Let's go through that. TERENCE SMITH: Mike Connell is president of New Media Communications, his Cleveland-based firm that designs Web sites for Republican candidates -- including Jeb Bush -- and for the Republican National Committee where he makes regular visits to advise them on their Web page. MIKE CONNELL: 1998 is the wild, wild West years of the Internet in campaign politics. It is the defining year. 1996 got us into it. 1998 is a year where people are trying many different things, and nobody knows the outcome. TERENCE SMITH: Only a handful of candidates had campaign Web sites up and running two years ago. This year, in the hopes of gaining advantage here at the polls, some 63 percent of all local, state, and federal campaigns are using the Internet. Among the governor's races, the figure is 94 percent. LINDA SINOWAY: I think it's a perfect example of low-cost, high-impact, you know, compared to other traditional mediums.
	Cyber-campaigns.
	TERENCE SMITH: Linda Sinoway is director of interactive media at the Democratic National Committee. She believes the Internet can pay off for candidates, possibly beginning tonight as the returns are counted. LINDA SINOWAY: Close races could be decided by the use of the Internet, depending on what the candidate and the campaign team has put into the Internet in the last couple of months. TERENCE SMITH: Among the Democrats, California Senator Barbara Boxer locked in a tight race for re-election, has one of the more innovative Web sites. It includes upcoming events and a section called Barbara's backers with a form for volunteers to sign up, and in a fund-raising first -- an online concert with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. By election eve, the Boxer campaign had raised 25,000 dollars on its Web site -- petty cash in a state like California, but a start. On many campaign Web sites -- you can hear and see speeches and excerpts from debates. SPOKESPERSON: We begin with Sen. Barbara Boxer's opening state. TERENCE SMITH: In Ohio, GOP gubernatorial candidate Robert Taft encourages virtual volunteers to call local radio call-in shows to plug his candidacy. There are even Web games. Senator Russ Feingold invites his constituents to play "the shell game," where you can add up his opponents' promises and see if there's enough money to pay the bill. CAMPAIGN AD: If we educate children to the best possible way – TERENCE SMITH: The Jeb Bush campaign has a section called "Marvin the Dog" with some droll canine commentary about life with the Bush family. Marvin also answers questions. It's all designed to make the page user-friendly. JEB BUSH: I just don't see any way that a statewide campaign can be successful in the future without a Web page.
	Coming of age.
	TERENCE SMITH: William Harrison is the Bush campaign co-chairman for Bay County, Florida. He worked for Bush when he ran and lost in 1994, and he's back at it again this year. WILLIAM HARRISON: We did a lot of phone work in 1993 and 1994, we got a lot of things in the mail, and so there would be as much as a week's delay and a lot of times that was fatal for us because we could not react quickly to things that would tend to spring up overnight. TERENCE SMITH: Harrison says the Internet saved the campaign time and money. When changes in campaign strategy occurred, a stroke of the keys allowed him to send out the word instantly, instead of wasting days on the phone. Candidates began creating Web pages in earnest in the 1994 electoral cycle. In 1996 Republican Presidential Candidate Robert Dole made history when he announced his campaign's Web site. BOB DOLE: If you really want to get involved, just tap into my home page: www.dolecamp96.org. TERENCE SMITH: The Web site was flooded with a million attempted hits and promptly crashed. With some of the kinks in the system worked out -- this year the Internet is coming of age. One of its big successes: attracting volunteers. In 1996, the Dole presidential campaign recruited one third of their volunteers via the Internet. This year Barbara Boxer attributed half of her 500 volunteers to her Web page. SPOKESPERSON: Who are you voting for on Tuesday, little lady?
	Full potential?
	TERENCE SMITH: Erik Kirk entered Jeb Bush's "Get Involved" page and became a volunteer with the click of a mouse. He sent out e-mails to friends asking them to attend this campaign rally in Tallahassee. ERIK KIRK: For my generation, the Internet is the ultimate tool for candidate. If a candidate doesn't have an Internet Web page, he or she is really missing the boat. TERENCE SMITH: But do the skippers of those boats -- the candidates -- really understand the potential of the Internet? Linda Sinoway of the Democratic National Committee believes the Internet will prove itself in the future. LINDA SINOWAY: Coupled with what we learned about the technology in '96 with what we're learning now about message and, you know, it as a communications medium, I think we'll being seeing some very sophisticated uses of the Internet and Web sites in 2000. TERENCE SMITH: But candidates like Jeb Bush recognize that the Internet is no substitute for the personal touch. JEB BUSH: You still got to say hello to people and shake hands and sign things -- can't do that over the Web page.