Is 2008 the Last TV Election?

The conventional wisdom holds that Sen Barack Obama, if elected, would be the first "cybergenic president," the first to understand the many ways in which the Internet and other new media are transforming politics and American life. Zurawik believes it is more accurate to say that a President Obama would be the last "TV president." Nothing speaks to the primacy of TV over the Internet this year like the record $5 million and $6 million spent by the Obama and McCain campaigns, respectively, in advertising buys on the Olympics. Follow the money if you want to know what the candidates and their handlers really believe in - and it's TV, not the Internet, that comes first. It's TV, not the Internet, stupid. And that's historic, too, because this could be the last time the really important stuff in a presidential election happens on that old media screen.