I was catching up on my feed reading and came across this interesting post by Bush-Cheney e-campaign veteran Mike Turk.  Paraphasing wildly, Turk thinks the entire poli-tech community is focusing too much on how the Presidential candidates are using the latest technologies (Facebook, YouTube, etc.) instead of whether they are developing strategies that will actually win elections. 

While I was trying to figure out whether to agree or be offended, I came across the 2007 Golden Dot People’s Choice Award for Online Politician of the Year (thanks David) brought to you by the Institute for Politics, Democracy, & the Internet (IDPI).  IDPI asks users to vote for one of the following nominees:

• Ned Lamont for using the liberal netroots to beat Joe Lieberman in the CT Democrat Senate primary before being beaten soundly by Lieberman in the general election.
• Mark Warner for participating in a lightly attended and heavily moderated campaign event in Second Life in preparation for a Presidential run that didn't even make it into 2007. 
• Dick DeVos for his innovative use of mobile technologies and for holding a user-generated video contest.  He lost 56%-42% to incumbent Jennifer Granholm. 
• Jack Kingston for using blogs, online video, photo sharing, etc. in an innovative way on his official website.  Kingston has a safe seat and won reelection handily in 2006.

Basically, three of the four nominees did not achieve the office they sought and are being nominated for losing with style.  Winning was not a consideration in putting together this list.  I could understand including one or two politicians who lost (avoiding the word "losers" here), but three?

So I guess I agree with Turk. 

But, having been through a few rodeos, I know it is almost impossible to judge an online strategy based solely on public information.  Much of the most important work (list matching and building, mass emails, blog outreach, volunteer outreach, etc.)  is done anonymously and in private.    As I wrote before:

Just because a campaign has a relatively simple website that doesn't make a lot of noise doesn't mean they don't get "it".  And just because a campaign site has a blog or whatever doesn't mean they do.

As an aside, I voted for Jack Kingston since he is the only nominee who is actually in office at this point.  But I actually think the person of the year should be James Webb for thinking to have a cameraman follow George Allen around (macaca!)

Who do you think should be person of the year?