Presidential Hopefuls to Debate Online

Although the US presidential elections aren't due until 2008 the race for nomination for candidates is already in full swing and the Internet is already proving to be an essential campaign tool. Now candidates have announced that they will take the race directly to the Internet with an online debate between leading Democratic Party and Republican Party candidates.

While the community and networking aspects of the Internet proved important in the last presidential election, with candidates such as Howard Dean using it effectively to galvanize his supporters, 2008 is shaping up to be the first Web 2.0 election. Senator Hillary Clinton has already fallen afoul of the YouTube phenomenon thanks to a user generated video parody of the Apple 1984 advertisement, while Democratic hopefuls Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards all have MySpace pages.

The online debate is being jointly hosted by Slate.com, The Huffington Post and Yahoo Elections who will allow users to post questions to the candidates who will answer them in real time. There will be two separate debates, one for Republican candidates and the other for Democratic candidates on dates that are yet to be announced.