Both B.L. Ochman and Li Evans have questioned both the Republican and Democrat campaigners lack of social media engagement. And it’s true. Blogs are canned, they don’t communicate the actual campaign life very well, and we get very little what I would call "genuine" or authentic campaign insights.

Similarly, social network usage is also canned. See Barrack Obama’s twitter page or his MySpace effort. Republican side, consider supposed social media guru Ron Paul’s Twitter feed.  Read’s like political billboards to me. Or Huckabee’s campaigners spinning the evangelist on YouTube.

For me, it comes down to control.  Political PR revolves around command and control, and most of these candidates will not give it up.  Controlling the message can be a maniacal endeavor for these organizations, and enabling independent voices to speak on behalf of a candidate as they feel and see issues runs contrary to campaign PR strategies. As a result, like Shel says, you really don’t get a good feel for these people (Image credit: KCIvey).

That doesn’t mean the campaigns are not using social media.  On the contrary, they do use it for controlled communications. They are most certainly monitoring it actively, often researching their competitors and seizing opportunities to attack inconsistencies in message outreach.

There are moments of brilliance, too. Mike Hucakabee wisely refers people from his canned blog to the many bloggers his campaign sanctions. 

In addition, Washington PR types will often use advocacy groups to shelter their efforts, and attack on particular issues.  Unfortunately, without disclosure this astroturfing practice can be quite misleading. Remember the Swift Boat attack ads that undermined John Kerry? More on DC’s astroturfing mentality tomorrow.

At the same time, elections are great opportunities for political bloggers to hash out issues and for advocacy groups to shine. Consider the McLovin spot that’s gotten more than 600K views on YouTube (The spot encourages youth to register and vote). Or Paulitics recent swipe on Christian evangelism in the U.S., which was "Dugg" by more than 3,000 people (present company included). Or this highly succesful post painting the current administration’s census efforts as trying to invade your privacy.

Back to the campaigners themselves, it will probably take an act of desperation in a losing campaign to cause a candidate to loosen the message control and unleash the power of social media.  By then, it may be too late to harness the true power of the Long Tail.