Politics 2.0: It's Now Everybody's Game

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Link to June 29 New York Times article, "Political Freelancers Use Web to Join the Attack".

Excerpt:

In previous elections, an attack like that would have come from party operatives, campaign researchers or the professional political hit men who orbit around them.

But in the 2008 race, the first in which campaigns are feeling the full force of the changes wrought by the Web, the most attention-grabbing attacks are increasingly coming from people outside the political world. In some cases they are amateurs operating with nothing but passion, a computer and a YouTube account, in other cases sophisticated media types with more elaborate resources but no campaign experience.

Examples here, here, (Villarreal "the Rambler" is mentioned in the article), and here.