I love news. I have to have my daily feed of what's going on. But the one thing that will make me turn the channel (or in today's Internet culture, "click") faster than anything is political "flack."
So yes, I am steering clear of all mudslinging political news as Super Tuesday continues to make its creeping presence known.
However, I can still be an informed citizen and make political decisions even if I avoid the feeding frenzy. My answer? My good friend Marc Langston's Facebook page.
Candidate Facebook pages are the reason many youths are tuned in to the 2008 campaign.
Photo: Illustration by Jessica Reber
Of course Marc's Facebook page is full of bias. But what else can you expect from the president of the college Democrats and one of the state's leading forces behind the Obama campaign? However, I trust him. He's never steered me wrong.
Marc uses Facebook to weigh the latest news on Obama. He also plans rallies, nationally and locally, and comes up with ways to contribute to the campaign.
Marc is not alone. He is among nearly 300 thousand supporters in Obama's Facebook network.
Nearly one year ago, shortly after Obama announced his plans to seek the presidency, a Facebook group organized rally at George Mason University. The rally, created solely by the social networking site, drew an estimated 3,000 students, and greatly resembled a party convention.
But early in the campaign, many political analysts questioned whether Obama's social networking friends could turn into votes.
Howard Dean didn't capitalize in 2004. The former Vermont governor raised millions of dollars on the web that generated buzz among online communities. Dean fell on his face early, finishing third in the Iowa caucus.
The "Facebook rally" at George Mason proved that the youth behind the Obama campaign is more than a bunch of kids who clicked a button. The key point is that the support for the candidates is not being driven by campaigns themselves. It's a new generation of political activism by social networking influence that breathed life into the dormancy of young American voters.
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