Next session is “Political World - Hype vs. Reality in Campaign ‘08″. Just caught the tail end of this one.

John Della Volpe, Founder & Managing Partner of SocialSphere, responding to a question from the audience, points out that most of campaigning is still “old school”, that they are still a cycle away from taking up “web 2.0″ networking techniques. Up until this cycle campaign organizers did not realize how many young tech-savvy voters there actually are. The challenge, he says, is what is the next step, and what will the government participation be.

Audience member references characterization of Obama as “not speaking specifics”, that the “press is more interested in charisma” and that “Hillary goes for substance”. She asks if perhaps the information is actually out there and the traditional media is just not picking it up. Carolyn Washburn, Vice President & Executive Editor of the Des Moines Register, responds that she is always a little leery of the word “media” as it is such a broad term. Also, there is the charisma thing in debates, and candidates play what they see as their strengths; if charisma is working for Obama, then it’s natural that he uses it. As well, whereas he used to be able to respond directly to questions, his appearances have become very large and you can’t take questions when you’re in an arena with 30,000 people, so you fall back on the charisma thing. Also HIV Aids platforms for both Obama and Clinton are very detailed, but the impression (that Obama’s platform does not have substance) is still there.

Another question came up about the drive at the Wall Street Journal to cover electronic campaigning. Michael Silberman from EchoDitto explains that while the challenge for campaigns is to let go, they find themselves in a media landscape that is very unfamiliar, both online and offline. Obama campaign is probably furthest ahead, but they cold be doing a lot more. A lot of political campaigning happening outside the locus of control of formal organizations, equivalent level of campaigns popping up outside of what would traditionally be considered “the campaign”.

Amy Shatz from the Wall Street Journal points out that she is not sure that political campaigns is necessarily where you should expect to find innovation, and that the experimentation this time around may be due to the fact that there are so many candidates. She sees the most interesting candidate as Ron Paul. Biggest challenge remains bringing online activism offline.