If McCain supporters tried to create a South Park-like TV commercial where giant rats eat George W., followed by a snickering voice-over that says: "George sucks," it would never fly on a major network, though it might do wonders for his campaign. On the contrary, with some over-paid highly caffeinated animators and the right tools, it would be no problem on the Internet. Even more attractive than having an open forum to creatively slander your opponent with relative anonymity is the voluminous population to which the nominees can broadcast their electronic scribbles at a fraction of the cost of a TV ad.

The "friends" of New York mayor Rudolph Guliani recently fired the opening salvo in their wired campaign for the NY Senate against Hillary Clinton by creating the HillaryNo.com website. The site, which is surprisingly dull considering the fanfare it has received, encourages visitors to install HillaryNo banners on their individual web pages and features goofy pictures of the First Lady that would look great on the cover of the National Enquirer. It also has an archive of links to numerous Hillary bashing articles, and a page ominously named, "Hillary Watch."

Of course, the "friends" of Mrs. Clinton retaliated in short order by setting up RudyNo.com: a distinctively more creative and Gen-X site that co-ops the "Rudy for Senate" logo and adds a little "NOT" to the end of it. Other highlights of the anti-Rudy site include demonic images, a less than flattering photo of Guliani dressed as Liberace, and, in true New York style, a list of the top ten reasons NOT to elect Rudy for US Senate.

Reason number one: "He opened HillaryNo.com but failed to register RudyNo.com. What other really stupid mistakes will he make?"

Another favorite tactic of electronic mercenaries is to create similar looking, but derogatory, mock web pages for a targeted candidate and post them at a related URL such as the one at georgebushsux.org.

Strategists in the Bush camp, demonstrating a small bit of net savvy, conducted a preemptive strike and purchased that URL, along with more than 20 domains like it, including: bushsux.com; bushbites.net; and bushblows.org.

You can imagine the disappointment I felt upon realizing that georgebushblows.org is NOT, in fact, a non-profit organization dedicated to presidential felatio. Unfortunately, the address points to George's blasé old "put me in the Office cause my daddy says so" home page. Talk about party poopers...

Obviously, the gloves are off in Campaign 2000's virtual punching match and its anybody's fight. Hillary recently announced that she will spend $25 million in her race for the Senate, and George has already spent more than twice as much as any predecessor to date – and he's still just in the primaries.

Considering the endless barrage of commercials and radio spots the electorate will be subjected to over the next ten months, will a few denigrating web pages really matter? Especially given that, according to Fox News/Opinion Dynamics, 92 percent of New Yorkers say they already know which Senate nominee they will vote for in November.

I suppose you could lay odds that the all-important tie-breaking swing voters of the next election might cast their ballots based on the persuasiveness of goreblows.com, but frankly, I'd sooner bet on a three-legged horse in the Kentucky Derby.

I remember when the Internet was new, it was touted by many as a means of returning some measure of democracy to the people. I must own up to having shared some level of misty-eyed faith in this notion. Sadly, it appears that functional democracy on the Net has been reduced to those ubiquitously stupid opinion polls now found on virtually every website, and an endless selection of petty games of graffiti tag.

Of course, the corporate model still holds in cyberspace. The Bush campaign reports that georgewbush.com pulls in about a $120,000 a week through contributions (probably from all those donors who were re-routed from www.bushbites.net).

If you're feeling left out because you really want to get in on the Campaign 2000 action, but can't afford the multimillion-dollar ante it takes to be a candidate, take heart. As of this writing, Hillarysucks.com is still up for sale on the eBay auction site (item # 47163235). You can probably still get a good deal. Among other things, it could make a quirky gift for that special someone. As the ad says, "Perfect for any Hillary fan or hater, ...there's no telling what could end up on the hillarysucks.com website."

February 2000