Internet aids campaign

Modern election campaigns are composed of two separate offensive strategies: the air war and the ground war. \nThe air war encompasses forms of broadcast media while the ground war is centered on interfacing with voters via mailing campaigns and door-to-door initiatives. But with the growing power of the Internet and electronic data sorting techniques, the strategies dealing with these components have been forced to change. \nThe re-election campaign organizers for Democrat Gov. Frank O'Bannon and Lt. Gov. Joe Kernan incorporated the speed of the Internet and the efficiency of electronic data sorting into their election strategy with great success.\n"New technology is used to get out the vote and is integrated into all aspects of the campaign," explained Steve Bella, communications director for the state Democratic Party. \nThe usage of electronic campaigning allowed the candidates greater degrees of freedom while they continued their state obligations, which took up time they could have used to campaign, said Tom New, the state campaign manager. \n"The candidates had to maintain the state during the election. They did not have as much time as their opponents to campaign since they really had to be on the job," New said.\nNew said the Internet allowed O'Bannon to interact directly with voters across the state through a chatroom forum. \nThe growing use of Web sites in political campaigns has created a media format the user can interact with and manipulate. It allows voters to glean information they might otherwise not acquire because of the limit of material that can be compressed into television and radio advertisements, New said.\n"To compete in today's elections you have to have a Web site and it has to be interactive," Bella said. "The Internet is not enough to compete with the broadcast media, but its use grows with every election year."\nThe changes on the ground war due to electronic data sorting allowed the O'Bannon campaign to save more than $46,000 and reach their supporters in a more effective manner, Bella said.\n"Technology affected the field campaign by allowing us to determine the sympathetic demographics in a household. Sorting technology also allowed us to remove duplicate names form our mailing lists."\nThe removal of these duplicate names and maintaining a focus on the demographic qualities of O'Bannon's supporters created the bulk of the savings.\nThe electronic campaign allowed party members to have easy access to target information used in the campaigns, said Kyle Cox, technology director of the state Democratic Party.\n"Our effort to get out the vote radiated from the state party office," Cox said.\n"The candidates could then use this information when their campaign workers are knocking on doors"