"fake left, run right."

How the Web Will Change Campaigns
The Internet was supposed to change the nature of politics. Technology would bring participatory democracy to a new level, ushering in a sort of Jefferson-meets-the-Jetsons era. But as the new Congress prepares to convene next month, a look at the Web's role in the recent midterm elections reveals that so far, such claims are as inflated as the predictions that the Internet would bankrupt bricks-and-mortar businesses.

The Web has transformed the "C2V" (candidate-to-voter) relationship even less than it has changed the "B2C" (business-to-consumer) dynamic. Still, just as in the dot-com world, it has had a real impact on logistics and operations.

Our research into candidate Web sites used in last month's elections shows that the visitors to such sites consist mostly of hard-core supporters, the media and political opponents. These sites do not appear to reach the mainstream electorate. Candidates have turned this limited appeal to their advantage, using the Web to communicate messages they may not want to broadcast widely.

Candidates can, for example, take more partisan positions than they do when they scramble for the political center on the stump. In the words of one Democratic candidate for House of Representatives we interviewed, they can "fake left, run right." Or they can portray themselves as uncompromising conservatives online but be reasonable centrists in person, as some Republican campaign managers told us.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/25/opinion/25HIND.html