Dimly Lit

If John Kennedy ushered in the era of television presidency back in 1960, is John Edwards going to be the man to usher in the YouTube presidency?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1etlZaf6zUw]

The problem with this approach is that television is largely a controlled environment. Oh, sure you might get some bad press occasionally, but for the most part the candidate has a great deal of control over what the public sees. The YouTube / Internet / viral video world is much different.

We got a glimpse of this in the last election with Howard Dean, the JibJab videos and the explosion of pundit blogs, but I have a feeling that was just a beginning and this election cycle will really see how the Internet can both help and hurt potential candidates.

Maybe John Edwards is being smart by jumping in with both feet and making his announcement via YouTube. We’ll just have to watch what happens now.