Now that we are almost into November of 2007, the Presidential primaries are just around the corner. A few of the candidates started off big on the “new media” angle, with profiles on social networks, personal and political blogs and online videos. Notably, Obama, Clinton and Giuliani fans and detractors stirred up a great deal of press around viral videos about their candidacies.

The press attention to these new media strategies has died down somewhat. In the NY Times article, “Their Look for Fall 2008,” Stephanie Rosenbloom looks at the candidates efforts to sell their images and messages on t-shirts, tank tops and pins. She notes that:

The race to offer the most extensive, fashion-conscious and youthful gear is being won by Mr. Obama and Rudolph W. Giuliani.

While it is certainly interesting to note that candidates are expanding their branded offerings, this is still simply the diversification of an existing campaign strategy—sell stuff with your name on it to finance and promote your presidential bid. What happened to the new media angle? I wanted to take a look at where these campaigns are now—are they keeping current with their media strategies, or has the new media kick stagnated along with the buzz around it?

I looked around online to see what some of the most talked about candidates were up to and to try to get a sense of their different strategies—or lack thereof—when it comes to new media. What I found was not what I had expected.

Barack Obama is on Twitter—now all those copycat Obama girls can find out what he is up to at any given moment! I was disappointed by the videos on the Barack Obama Impact Channel page however. They were not as current as I would have expected for a candidate with such a strong younger following. Facebook was another story. With well over 500 groups related to Obama and his candidacy, the buzz around this social network is certainly Obama-heavy.

Hillary Clinton also commands quite the presence on Facebook, with myriad positive and negative groups devoted to—or intended to detract from—Clinton’s candidacy. There was a rosier tint to her MySpace page where I found a slew of birthday well wishes from “friends”. If you get tired of reading those you can also catch up on her life story there, each section of which offers a video to complement the text. Most of the other videos I found for Clinton were standard TV ads that had been uploaded to the Web.

Mitt Romney also has a number of relatively recent TV ads online accessible on his site and his social network profiles. His own site has a “Mitt TV” section where viewers can watch news clips, promotional videos and reality TV-esque clips from a series the site calls “24 Hours on the Trail”.

Rudy Giuliani also uses this video tactic but takes it even further. A message on his MySpace page reads:

Hey there! I’m Dan Meyers and welcome to Rudy’s MySpace page. I am the host of “Running with Rudy” and I’m here to give you an insider’s perspective of life on the campaign.

Giuliani (or rather Dan and the team) employ interesting widgets and videos giving the page an up to date and digitally focused feel. Giuliani has fewer overall Facebook groups devoted to his candidacy, but also a higher ratio of supporting groups. Overall Giuliani got top marks for his new media efforts. Having weekly video updates and blog posts along with a young personality managing his online identity makes Giuliani’s presence on MySpace seem natural and current.

Interestingly enough, the fastest growing Facebook group at the moment is devoted to Stephen Colbert’s political aspirations. Within just one week Colbert’s group surpassed its 1 million member goal. This demonstrates the potential power of social networking available to candidates. If done right, such online networking can be an incredible political tool; gathering that number of supporters for so little time and money is truly impressive when compared to traditional campaigning methods.

Just as advertisers and old media must adapt to the new media paradigm, the Presidential candidates have found themselves in largely uncharted territory this election season. Everything about social networks, user-generated content and increasingly user-programmed content is opposed to control; outside of their own sites and Web pages, viral videos, blogs and Facebook groups define candidates in ways beyond their power. In light of this, candidates will increasingly need to shift their politicking to integrate their messages into this radically new environment. This may be the only way to reach a younger audience and maybe, just maybe, get them riled up enough to get out and vote when the time comes.