for W3c validation

I believe social media will hit politics head on for the 2008 election. Given this, what John Edwards is doing is INCREDIBLY smart — he’s a 1st mover for social media in politics by allowing the public (through Robert Scoble) to get to know him as a person. This is unheard of in politics. Take a few minutes and watch this interview with Scoble. Edwards is right — consumers don’t trust what they see on prime time television because the suspicion that everything is heavily screened for PR reasons. With the rise of social media, more and more voters are going to demand to get to know a candidate — through blogs, forums, podcasts, or videocasts — before voting for them. Whether candidates choose to embrace that fact is up to them. I admire Edwards for being this transparent and challenge every 2008 candidate to provide the same level of access. It will be truly AMAZING advance in social media if Edwards turns out to be our next President and maintains a personal blog while in office.

Not really related to social media, I fully agree with Presidential candidate John Edwards when he said, “We will never change the country unless the people of America decide internally that they want to change.” He mentioned that the United States needs to start functioning as a bottom-up democracy rather than a top-down — the people need to desire change, it can’t be forced on them.