HisSpace

America's politics have regularly been transformed by sudden changes in the way we communicate. And revolutions in communications technology have always bestowed great gifts on those politicians savvy enough to grasp their full potential. Improvements to the printing press helped Andrew Jackson form and organize the Democratic Party, and he courted newspaper editors and publishers, some of whom became members of his Cabinet, with a zeal then unknown among political leaders. The postal service, which was coming into its own as he reached for the presidency, was perhaps even more important to his election and public image. Newspapers enabled Lincoln to become a viable national candidate. Franklin Roosevelt used radio to make his case for a dramatic redefinition of government itself. John F. Kennedy understood the strengths and limitations of broadcast television before his peers did, and his election and popularity resulted partly from that understanding. The communications revolution under way today involves the Internet, of course, and if Barack Obama eventually wins the presidency, it will be in no small part because he has understood the medium more fully than his opponents do. Obama clearly intends to use the Web, if he is elected president, to transform governance just as he has transformed campaigning.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/ambinder-obama