2008 Hopefuls

John McCain is taking a page from Hillary Clinton’s playbook. About a month ago Clinton posed the following question to Yahoo visitors: “Based on your own family’s experience, what do you think we should do to improve health care in America?” Clinton has received 3,934 answers since that question was posed, most of them serious, thoughtful responses.

Now it appears that John McCain is attempting to harness the collective input of the masses as well by asking Yahoo users to provide feedback to an important political issue: wasteful government spending. In the two days since McCain has asked the question, “What would you do to stop wasteful government spending in Washington?” he has received 1,372 responses.

The move by both candidates to reach out to the masses should be applauded. It is going outside of the traditional way of campaigning and strikes a cord with many would be voters. As we’ve said to candidates before, ignore the power of the web in this election cycle at your own risk. Candidates must embrace the power of Web 2.0 technologies or be left behind.

Filed under: Democrats, Republicans, McCain, Clinton