I'm Barack Obama, and I did not approve this message.

Now that Americans are spending more and more time getting their information and entertainment online, the power for individuals to have a large effect on the political process is now larger than ever. An endorsement from a popular blog like the Daily Kos or Instapundit has the ability to sway the opinions of a gigantic base of readers. Even YouTube is an important political hub nowadays. An unauthorized ad for the Obama campaign, borrowing (stealing) heavily from the famous Macintosh ad from 1984, caused a huge splash. This is unchartered territory we're in now. Nobody is quite sure how these kinds of changes in the campaign process are going to affect the candidates and the process.

If bloggers and YouTubers are going to spread the word of their favored candidate most candidates would probably be all for it, right? It's free advertising, basically. But the candidates have no control over what these people do or the kinds of messages they put out. The unauthorized Obama ad was an attack ad against Hillary Clinton that came out months ago, well before the traditional time for primary candidates to start bringing out the attack dogs against the other candidates from their party.

Controlling the message is one of the most important parts of running a campaign. They don't want their opponents to try to put words in their mouths and misrepresent their views. This has always been something campaigns fight against. Now they may face the problem of making sure their own supporters don't disseminate false information about them, be too harsh on their opponents, and alienate undecided voters.