Opinion: The virtual primaries

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Bloomfield Hills, Mich. -- As if there weren’t enough real-world primaries going on, the folks at MySpace and Facebook have been holding their own online primaries, as our colleague David Sarno writes in today’s Calendar section. And while the online primaries are as meaningless as the Michigan Democratic primary, the results are interesting.

Any online poll -- and that’s what these ‘virtual primaries’ are -- relies on self-selected, and self-activated, participants. So the 150,000 people who took part in the MySpace primary reflect no meaningful political base. Near as we can figure, voters didn’t even have to prove they were old enough, or a U.S. citizen. The results, though, indicate where the loyalties lie among that self-selected group of Internet users.

And there were no surprises. On the Democratic side, Barack Obama -- whose support is heavy among left-leaning upper-middle-class Democrats -- took 46% compared to 31% for Hillary Rodham Clinton and 8% for John Edwards. Among the Republicans, Ron Paul‘s net-revolutionaries clicked mightily, giving him 36% to Rudy Giuliani‘s 18% and Mike Huckabee‘s 16%.

In the real primaries and caucuses, Obama won Iowa and Clinton won New Hampshire. On the Republican side, Paul has barely figured in the final outcomes: Huckabee won Iowa and McCain -- who didn’t place well at all in the online primary -- won New Hampshire. The MySpace results also contradict national preference polls. As indicators, the virtual primaries just aren’t there.

So what lessons do such polls offer? First, sites like MySpace are keen to tie into political activism, and these polls have more to do with marketing and branding than with elections. But look beyond the vote breakdown and you get a glimpse of social and political networking. Political strategists have learned that the Internet is a great organizing and fundraising tool, able to move information to people quickly, and to provide an easily-accessed base of information on everything from events to how to get lawn signs.

But in the end, it’s just a place to do a little research and have a detached conversation. Sure, you can rally the faithful there, but campaign strategists know that person-to-person contact is the best way to build a movement. Otherwise, why have all these offices?

-- Scott Martelle