Mark Drapeau wrote this interesting post about new media and political campaigns.  His conclusion: 

Candidates need platforms, personalities, financing, timing, and luck to pull off a successful run. In the end, a campaign is a campaign, and new media tools are just that – tools. They can in principle helpful for executing a campaign against a candidate’s core strengths and beliefs.  But they more than likely cannot be used successfully in isolation.

I met Dr. Drapeau at Gov 2.0 Camp and attended his panel discussion on The Cluetrain Manifesto.