Eagle Tribune - Pols Invade MySpace for Youth Vote

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LAWRENCE - Jenry Diaz, 21, was messaging friends on her MySpace Web site recently when she received an unusual request from "Barry Finegold for US Congress."

"He just requested to be my friend, and I approved him," the single mother from Lawrence said.

Finegold and several other Democratic contenders for Martin Meehan's seat in Congress have been trolling social networking Web sites like MySpace, looking to gain a vote or score a campaign volunteer.

Candidates hope to drive home their messages on these sites - Friendster, Facebook and Partybuilder are among the others - and make contact with young voters.

The candidates blog and post dozens of photographs and speeches on video sites like YouTube. Just a few hours after a Wednesday night debate in Chelmsford, you could watch all five Democrats delivering closing remarks.

"It's a really cool way of communicating," Finegold, an Andover state representative, said. "It's a way to build an organization in a nontraditional way. It's very 21st century."

Finegold says he also does it for the sake of his young staff, most of whom are in their 20s. His campaign spokeswoman found him through YouTube.

"It's fun for them," Finegold said. "It gets them enthused. … I'm learning to work most of the sites. I'm 80 percent there."

The sites can show a less formal side of the candidate, something the politically uninclined can connect to.

The MySpace page for Lowell candidate Niki Tsongas plays songs like John Mayer's "Waiting on the World to Change" and Van Halen's "Right Now."

Another candidate for the 5th District seat, state Rep. James Eldridge of Acton, lists some of his favorite television programs on his page. They include "The Daily Show," "ER," "The Office" and "The Sopranos."

"I see it as a way to bring in people who have fell out of politic, but are Internet savvy," Eldridge said. "It's direct voter contact."

It's something that wasn't common even a few years ago.

"Back in 2000, when I was working on campaigns, there were no Web sites," Eldridge said. "We just called people and called people."

Congressional expert Julian Zelizer, a professor at Boston University thinks this is only the beginning.

Presidential candidates have spearheaded the trend. They will hold a series of online "town hall" meetings on MySpace this fall, allowing users to ask questions through an instant messaging program and watch live online.

"Part of the attraction is being able to avoid media filters," Zelizer said. "It's very quick and not quite as costly as television is. It's their message."

Zelizer said there's a downside: "Damaging information is also available, with no filter. Critics can post freely."

There have been no studies on how Internet support translates into votes. But campaign staffers are keeping close watch on the numbers of "friends" each candidate is pulling in on the Web.

When two MySpace users agree to be friends, each includes the other's photo on a friend list. Friends also receive bulletins the user posts.

Eldridge's campaign says he's doing better than the rest on the Facebook site, with almost 400 people in his friend group.

Finegold's camp brags that he's on more social Web sites than the rest.

Tsongas spokeswoman Katie Elbert said with so many candidates in the race even a small edge could help.

"Even if you pick up one vote," she said recently.

But not everyone in the Web audience will be able to vote.

Only 11 of Finegold's 30 MySpace friends and 12 of Tsongas' 28 list addresses in the 5th District. Eldridge has fewer than a dozen 5th District residents on his friend list.

Finegold spokeswoman Nairi Tashjian said many of the out-of-state residents on his friend list are campaign interns and their personal friends - the case for the handful of Finegold's Arkansas MySpace supporters - or old friends of Finegold.

"There are no boundaries with the Internet," she said.

Samantha Barnes of Saugus, which is not in the district, decided to join Finegold's MySpace page after listening to one of his campaigners speak to her political science class at Merrimack College.

"After I came home, I decided to just peek and see if he had a MySpace page, which he did, so I became his friend," Barnes said.

One of Finegold's friend's on the site is the "Baby Safe Haven," law, which he helped pass that allows parents to surrender a newborn infant at a hospital, police or fire station without facing criminal prosecution. Yes, even that has its own MySpace page.

Not everyone is buying into the social networking hype. Lowell City Councilor Eileen Donoghue's spokesman Scott Ferson said he wasn't sure whether a MySpace page under the name of his boss is official. It has one friend. He said Donoghue is focusing more on her Web site.

Wilmington state Rep. James Miceli is still working on putting up his Web site.

The race's lone Republican candidate, James Ogonowski of Dracut, has a small following on the Web site Facebook.

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