What we can do online and on the bus.

I AVOIDED BARACK OBAMA'S Web site for months. I refused to get caught up in any love fest over any candidate. For me this election season would be the usual experience: catty political commentary from reporters on the campaign trail. Besides, I did not want anyone texting me about a VP pick. I wanted the news when I wanted it, not when it happened. At 33, I'm old-fashioned.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

But I had some research to do for the magazine. Go to Obama's site, I told myself, get the information and get out.

Within seconds though, I was watching videos, reading blogs and considering if I should buy an Obama baseball cap for the guy I was dating. But then came the real hook: with one click in our California office. I found the Obama groups in my home state of Jersey. I had at my fingertips access to people throwing parties and door knocking and I actually wondered what bar they were meeting at on Friday. (John McCain's Web site, by comparison, had videos but gave me no easy way to reach his groupies in the Garden State.)

Regardless of who wins this November (we went into production as the Republic National Convention was getting underway), electoral politics, like social justice movements and the rest of our lives for that matter, are being changed by social networking sites, iPhones and other aspects of Web 2.0. This is a good thing. No, it ...