Readers of this blog have no need for another example of how much the Internet is changing political campaigns.  Even local campaigns are seeing the importance now of a quality website, blogging and working with bloggers, email, and social networking.  The extent, however, that a candidates "Internet Reputation" affects their election is ultimately unmeasurable and as a result, overlooked.

That includes the candidate's Wikipedia profile.  For those of you who don't know, Wikipedia is a user-edited online encyclopedia with articles on topics from recent movies to Presidential candidates.  According to Alexa.com, it is the 8th most visited website in the US.  Because it's content is user-generated, articles are open to constant editing and graffiti- particularly for controversial individuals.  In my opinion, most articles on politicians tend to focus heavily on controversies and are light on accomplishments.  They also tilt to favor the left (reflecting the demographics of most editors).  But despite its volatile nature, Wikipedia cannot be ignored.  Learn more here.

Count on us to investigate.

With some help from a friend (cough- William Beutler- cough) with greater expertise regarding Wikipedia, we recently acquired some Wikipedia statistics from the month of February for every Indiana Congressman. 

The number is how many times the page was viewed in February.  The link is to the statistics.
429 -- http://stats.grok.se/en/200802/Pete_Visclosky
1042 -- http://stats.grok.se/en/200802/Baron_Hill
1069 -- http://stats.grok.se/en/200802/Steve_Buyer
1250 -- http://stats.grok.se/en/200802/Joe_Donnelly
1335 -- http://stats.grok.se/en/200802/Brad_Ellsworth
1873 --  http://stats.grok.se/en/200802/Mark_Souder
2419 -- http://stats.grok.se/en/200802/Andre_Carson
2456 -- http://stats.grok.se/en/200802/Mike_Pence
19648 -- http://stats.grok.se/en/200802/Dan_Burton

Note that 5the District Congressman Dan Burton's profile saw an additional 17,500 views in February from January, a two-day spike as a result of the Clemens hearings.  For more detail, look below to see Wikipedia traffic in the month of April. 

In April, Burton's Primary campaign was in full swing.  The two big spikes came on April 14th and April 28th.  On the 14th, Burton's opponent began his TV campaign.  On the 28th, the Indianapolis Star ran an editorial about the race critical of Burton.

This is heavy traffic that reflects the nature of the Internet in 2008.  Sometimes a candidate can generate a buzz offline with a good Internet operation.  But also, candidates need to keep in mind that they will generate online activity by offline actions.  Offline campaign activities like direct mail blitzes, TV stories, and campaign commercials will result in additional searches on popular search engines like Google and Yahoo- both of which generally give Wikipedia top billing.  You need to make sure that your voters are finding positive information.

So our advice:  Pay attention to Wikipedia- your voters are.

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