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The internet is a hotspot to campaign for the votes of constituents. It is a place of vision, information, and just the thing 2008 candidates are looking for: younger voters between the age of 18 and 24, who are notorious for not showing up at the polls.

Hillary Clinton's Sopranos parody on YouTube has reached more than 230,000 views on a single posting by "tpmtv" (there are several more postings with several more thousands of views). The well-known video website is associated with younger citizens, so are Facebook and Myspace, two social networking websites aimed at younger adults. Clinton and Obama can be found on Myspace, as well as Giuliani.

It seems the strategy this campaign season is to reach out to younger voters via the social world of the internet in hopes to motivate them toward the polls in 2008. It is unfortunate, then, that these candidates have missed their mark.

According to an article on Comscore.com, most Myspace users are over the age of 35. Facebook is a better bet, with nearly one third of members between 18 and 24 years of age. Despite this flaw in such a well-hatched plan, the reality of voter turn-out is based on the individual's interest or disinterest in the future state of this nation.

If a person is interested in a candidate or certain issues, he will take the time to educate himself and vote. A website's attempt to "rope in" those constituents who are not interested and do not make the effort to become informed of the issues is optimistic, responsible perhaps, but most likely ineffective. Regardless of age and internet polls, the people who care about voting are the people who will vote.

Learn more about this author, Kristina Rae.
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