Mayoral candidate Linda Cropp said Tuesday that she has launched an “aggressive online advertising campaign,” the latest in a series of Internet drives initiated by political hopefuls.
Cropp, the D.C. Council chair, said her campaign has started running a 30-second spot on WashingtonPost.com. The Post and The Examiner on Tuesday endorsed Adrian Fenty in the mayor’s race.
The Democratic primary is Sep. 12.
“We want to make sure that in this final week, when voters are really focusing on the race, that we give them every opportunity to know where Linda Cropp wants to take this city,” said Ron Eckstein, Cropp’s campaign spokesman.
The Web, particularly through blogs and neighborhood message boards, has grown increasingly influential during election season. Campaigns, especially those of underdogs, are hosting their own blogs and publicizing candidates on other Web sites through supporter messages or paid advertising.
Bloggers and community leaders, meanwhile, are posting interviews and questionnaire responses on their sites.
Who’s reading? The Cleveland Park Yahoo listserv has 4,462 members. Brookland’s message board has 1,574 members and Hill East is read by another 800 people. Popular local blog Dcist.com averages between 13,000 and 16,000 daily readers, said editor Martin Austermuhle. Dozens of other sites provide access to thousands more D.C. voters.
“Given the current nature of blogs, we only reach a certain audience, and therefore may prove less important to campaigns than the traditional media,” Austermuhle said in an e-mail. “Over the next few years, though, I wouldn’t be surprised to see campaigns hire staffers to focus on online outreach, both because politics is heading in that direction and because it is much, much cheaper and easier to communicate than through traditional means.”
At Metroblogging DC — dc.metblogs.com — City Captain Tom Bridge is still waiting for all but one mayoral hopeful to return his questionnaire. On Monday, Bridge posted Fenty’s answers for the benefit of thousands of monthly readers.
“It’s clear to me that they still have a lot to learn, how to treat blogs and use them as outreach,” Bridge said of the campaigns.
