Not Your Sweetie

Where Political Influence Is Only a Keyboard Away
More than ever, the Internet gives people a connection -- and a voice -- in campaigns.
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  By Matea Gold, Times Staff Writer
NEW YORK — Every morning, before her 5-year-old daughter wakes up, Leah Faerstein sits down at her computer in her East Village apartment and logs onto Democratic presidential candidate Wesley K. Clark's Web site.
A few years ago, Faerstein was politically indifferent and didn't own a computer. But now the stay-at-home mom spends hours a day on Clark's Web log, or blog, munching on chocolate Clark bars and chatting with other aficionados of the former NATO commander.   
   
   
 Recently, she was thrilled to hear Clark use a phrase about democracy that she had suggested on the blog.
"I'm not going to take the credit," said Faerstein, 50. "But I think it's osmosis. There's a back and forth between us and the campaign. I couldn't feel more connected."
Faerstein is one of hundreds of thousands of people who have turned to the Internet this year to participate in national politics, relying on a technology that is playing a central role in the way citizens are experiencing the 2004 presidential campaign.