Campaign.USA

There are some who question the impact or the value of the new online politics. Andrew Keen, author of "The Cult of the Amateur" and critic of the YouTubing, Facebooking, Wikipedia-ing masses, says the Internet's role in the campaign is "mostly hype, personality-driven, the 'American Idol'-ization of politics."

If the Internet is indeed having "great impact," Keen reasons, Ron Paul, the Republican Party's Internet rock star, would have won the nomination. Obama, who's greatly benefited from his online popularity, "would have been successful without the help of the Internet anyway," he says.

Then Keen slips back to his general assessment of the medium. "The problem with the Internet is it's the opposite of nuance," he says. "It's media with a hammer."

Keen, however, is in the minority.

For many, the Internet has ushered in an irreversible and seemingly seismic shift -- not only for voters but also for candidates. Sure, the Web, like TV, has its limitations. A campaign's online strategy can't single-handedly win an election any more than its TV ads can. Still, the Web's impact has been profound. For instance, running a serious campaign means raising a serious amount of money. Without the Web, the relatively unknown Obama would have been unable to mount such a strong challenge to the more prominent Clinton. Nearly 60 percent of the $193 million that Obama has raised so far in his campaign -- about $112 million -- came from online contributions, with 90 percent of them in amounts of $100 or less.

"What we're watching is an evolution away from Washington's control, away from the power that big money and big donors used to have a monopoly on," says Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat and former Senate majority leader.

Adds Richard Viguerie, often called the "funding father" of the modern conservative movement for his effective use of direct mail: "The establishment, the power structure, the Karl Roves, are losing control of the process. There's a new center of power developing."

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Nothing rattles a campaign more than losing control of its message.

Campaigns are centralized, hierarchal, top-down operations. Everything's timed, choreographed. Staffers stay on message.

That goes against the very nature of the Web, where hijacking a candidate's message and spreading it around is easily done with the help of YouTube, a few rudimentary video editing skills and an e-mail list.

There are examples galore, and here's one of the first: On Jan. 9, 2007, a YouTube mash-up of Mitt Romney declaring his earlier support for abortion and gay rights -- positions he later renounced -- went viral.