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Not only can people hear directly from candidates without a media filter, but surfers can become politically active simply by forwarding an e-mail to a friend. Karen Ehrlich found that out inadvertently. She does not consider herself a political activist by any means. But when her sister forwarded her an e-mail listing Texas' low rankings in healthcare, environmental, and education spending, she decided other people should have that information. She sent it to her friends and asked them to "Forward this to every person of voting age." With the speed of the "love bug," the e-mail whizzed across the country. "I had no idea it would generate this kind of response," says the healthcare worker in Felton, Calif. Ms. Ehrlich admits she's not exactly sure where her sister got the information, but she trusts her sister, so she trusts the e-mail. Others may have less faith. "I don't know what the source is, so I wouldn't use it," says Andy Brack, a political Internet strategist who's putting his expertise to work in his run for Congress. Like almost every other candidate, the first thing you see as you download BrackforCongress.com, is a pop-up window urging you to get involved. You can donate, sign up to volunteer, read about Mr. Brack's background - and you can also follow his "walk across the district," 20 miles every weekend. "That's about as low-tech as you can get," says Brack, who is running for South Carolina's First District. "But there's a high-tech component to it as well. I always send out an e-mail, 'Here's where we are this weekend, come join us!' " That falls in line with his philosophy that the Web is more about building relationships than just providing information. But Brack is also worried that the Internet could be used for some negative politicking, compared with 1996, when sites tended to be benign places where viewers could read candidates' bios. "It's moving away from a candidate thing to a political consultants' thing," says Brack. He's still optimistic that more and more people will go on the Internet to get information about candidates and hopefully use it to reconnect with the political system and the people in it - if not join them for a weekend hike through the country. |
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