Face-off by Facebook

FACE-OFF BY FACEBOOK
[SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor]
Social network sites generate "trust communities" that can grow quickly. In the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday primaries, for instance, the use of Facebook by students helped create a stunning turnout of young people, not only at the ballot box but in that old-fashioned tactic of knocking on doors for candidates. Compared with the 2000 contests, the number of voters under 30 was double in Massachusetts, triple in Georgia, Missouri, and Oklahoma, and quadruple in Tennessee. An estimated 14 percent of voters in the Democratic primaries have been 18-29 years old, up from 9 percent in 2004 and 8 percent back in 2000. Much of this iPodic youthquake among the Millennials was driven by the candidacy of Barack Obama. His oratory and relative youth drive many young people to the polls. In a new measure of political clout, the number of Mr. Obama's "friends" on Facebook and MySpace is far larger than for other candidates. The networks only accelerate his appeal (www.techpresident.com tracks such numbers). This 21st-century digital democracy makes the Democrats' reliance on unelected "superdelegates" for picking a candidate seem like a throwback to smoke-filled back rooms.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0215/p08s01-comv.html