Pada saat tulisan ini dimuat, kandidat presiden parta demokrat Barrack Obama mendapatkan Electoral Votes 220 vs John Mc Cain 114. Untuk memenangkan pemilihan, kandidat perlu angka 270. Jadi sudah hampir dipastikan pemenangnya adalah Obama.
Menarik untuk dibaca bagaimana Obama memenangkan pertarungan Brand dirinya dengan Hillary menggunakan web 2.0. Berikut ini adalah tulisan Juan Cole yang merupakan President of the Global Americana Institute, 4 Juni 2008. Dia mengomentari headline di harian New York Times (NYT) yang menuliskan : "Obama Claims Nomination; First Black Candidate to Lead a Major Party Ticket." Dia tidak setuju dengan tulisan tersebut. Dia malah mengatakan :
"I think it is more significant that Obama is the first major party candidate for president who got where he is through the current iteration of the World Wide Web, which includes the blogging world, distributed information networks, social networking, and video sites such as YouTube (i.e. Web 2.0). That is, the Iowa breakthrough was iconic of Obama's success, because youth, progressivism, metro-racialism and independent politics are all tightly interwoven with Web 2.0.
Ironically, Bill Clinton's campaign in 1992 was the first to use email extensively to shape the news cycle and contact supporters, but Hillary Clinton's people did not seem as good (or maybe as interested) in being on the vanguard of communications technology.
Among the more important capabilities bestowed by the Web 2.0 has been a new model of grassroots fundraising. American politics had been dominated by rich old cranky white people, because they had the money and they voted. They gave us all those Republican administrations and they shaped the Clinton administration as essentially neo-Eisenhowerism. Obama really does have an opportunity to accomplish some new things in American politics, and to avoid slavish adherence to Lobby politics, precisely because he has a different economic base. People younger than 65, and people for whom certain racial categories are not the most important thing in the world, might finally have a voice. In the past, the promise of the youth vote has always faltered when it comes to the November elections. If people in their 20s, 30s and 40s really want change (and with Iraq, the economy, etc., why would they not?) they have to go on organizing, canvassing, giving and above all voting. It is in your hands, O Generation of Web 2.0.
Setahu penulis, Obama didukung oleh pendiri Facebook Mark Zuckerberg dalam kampanye dan mendapatkan dana kampanye lewat situs Social Networking. Coba saja cek komunitas pendukung Obama di Facebook.
Jadi, bilamana Obama menang, pantaslah disebut The First Web 2.0 President.
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