On the flight back to Washington, I struck up a conversation with the gentleman seated next to me and when the discussion reached my job, he asked (and I paraphrase):
Do you think Republicans or Democrats use the internet more effectively?
“Neither,” I answered.
Let’s say the internet is a gun. Every politician knows what it is. Some have handled it, a few have loaded it, and some can even tell you its mechanics (it’s a series of tubes, right?). In the analogy, Howard Dean in 2004 came closest to inflicting injury and Ron Paul is waving one around in public this time around, but no politician really knows what it can do, its true potential for damage, the strategic considerations of its mere existence in a situation.
No one from either party has a killer instinct with it yet. They didn’t sleep with it under the proverbial childhood pillow; their blood doesn’t turn cold knowing the speed of its ammunition. None of them ever shot a man just to watch him die.