Google's Campaign Toolkit Will Make It Even Easier for Politicians to Annoy You Online

Are you running for political office and not sure how to engage your constituents? Google has just launched a set of campaign tools to help you connect to that special voter in your life.

The toolkit is mostly a compendium of tricks, such as Google Moderator, Apps, News, and AdWords--the most significant of these, it has to be said, is AdWords, given that online advertising is expected to rise by 73% in this year's mid-term elections. Just how much of that spending will Google trouser? It's YouTube, however, where Google has been the most creative. The You Choose 2010 toolkit is split up into two sections: Campaign Tools and Paid Campaign Tools. The former offers up a YouTube Politician Channel, the aforementioned Moderator, and Insight, which shows you how well your videos are doing as well as who's watching them. What Google is not offering, however, is advice on improving the content of political videos.