If you're basing your hopes for an Obama victory on a facebook group, good luck. I seem to remember one that read "If this group reaches 100,000 memebers, my girlfriend will have a threesome with me." It reached 300,000+ in less than two weeks if I recall (on the contention that he take and publish pictures). It appears Obama is a distant second to threesomes in the world of facebook. Still feeling pumped about democracy?

That seemed slightly uncalled for Bruce. While facebook won't win elections, it is a good indicator of how excited many people are to see Barack running. I attended an Obama event here last week and thirty people came out. In a late primary state which has no Obama organizer that seems like a lot of people. Gasp, maybe people are excited about Barack.

That's pretty cool!

I hate Facebook though.

I didn't mean for my comment to be negative or a dig, but rather to illustrate a point. People get asked to join facebook groups all the time. Some people will join anything they get invited to, whether they believe in the cause or not. I would be curious to know how many of the 300,000 people in that group could actually tell you anything substanative about Barak Obama. My guess would be very few.

Well Bruce....I am 1 of those almost 300,000 and I check in everyday. There are so many people in the group with passion for the Obama campaign. We all give resaons why Obama is our choice. Most of us are generation "X" and "Y" and are participating in the political process for the very first time. We are donating as a group and have raised $7570.00 since last Saturday. The enthusiasm grows by the day just as the group does. Please don't undermine our ability to organize and discuss on a intellectual level why Obama is our guy. Over the next year, we will be more than a facebook group and we may shock the world when all of our hard work pays off. We are more than just talk- we are a growing movement to be foot soldiers for Obama. We encourage each person to register to vote, donate and to definately go to the voting booth. We will continue to strive for our VOICE as a collective group. Join us at any time!!! OBAMA in '08!!!!!!!

It's a mistake to underestimate the power of peer-to-peer communication, especially right now as the storyline of this race is still being developed. I would bet that many people in Obama's facebook group -- and those in other Presidential candidate groups as well -- could offer at least some tangible reason for joining. However, if someone joins because one of their friends asks them to (but they don't know about Obama or whoever) -- that too still seems valuable. Say you don't know about candidate X but join because a friend invites ... aren't you a lot more likely to be converted once in that group? Also, even if a group is used primarily for crowd-building at events that alone would seem to be helpful. Doing turnout takes a lot of work, and can really suck up campaign staff hours.

Powerful? You mean like the way Howard Dean sailed to the nomination on the backs of the Meet-Up crowd?

I would like to point out that facebook does have a large impact. As the Vice President of the UO College Democrats we use facebook as a recruitment tool to bring members to our meetings. We use it to promote our events such as the state of confusion which received national attention and was on all the news stations that night. As for as its impact on elections we were able to use facebook to help us organize a 60 person two day canvass for the governor in which we knocked on thousands of doors of Lane county voters. I would definitly say facebook helps get people elected, its not the deciding factor and they probably would have all got elected without it, but it sure makes my job easier and turns out people who normally would not be there.