Peter Wallsten

Internet advertising has been growing for years. But the healthcare fight, which has erupted in confrontational town hall meetings over the summer, has generated more Internet ad buying than any public policy debate so far.

As Barack Obama builds his administration and prepares to take office next week, his political team is quietly planning for a nationwide hiring binge that would marshal an army of full-time organizers to press the new president's agenda and lay the foundation for his reelection.

With 13 million e-mail addresses, hundreds of trained field organizers and tens of thousands of neighborhood coordinators and phone bank volunteers, the Obama volunteer network has become one of the most valuable assets in politics, and Obama's team may choose to deploy it to elect other Democratic officials, or to lobby Congress for his toughest legislative goals, or even to apply pressure on local and state policymakers across the country.

It is the biggest and broadest American political force ever created -- a vast, electronically linked network of activists, neighborhood organizers and volunteers who raised record amounts of money and propelled Barack Obama to the White House.