Let me first thank Kyle and Lila for asking me to participate in this week's book chat and of course thanks to Greg Mitchell for writing such a thought-provoking book.

Greg is really on to something about the importance of new media in political campaigns. It's not simply a question of using digital technology to get your message out, but it is also about how technology transforms the way candidates raise money and organize their supporters. The former in particular was not only hugely beneficial to the Obama campaign but by giving more Americans the opportunity to support their candidate it really helped democratize the political process and empowered millions of citizens.

The benefits to our democracy of the trends that Greg notes are really vast. I remember when I was a kid and I wanted to follow the presidential campaigns I had to rely on the 2-3 minute snippet from the evening news. Today, anyone can go online and read and watch the candidate's speeches, check out their positions, meet like-minded folks, find a place to volunteer etc. The extent to which new media is opening up American democracy so that more people can participate is perhaps the most important takeaway from the 2008 campaign. And I think we can all agree that this is a uniformly good thing!

Where I would push back a little on Greg's initial post is his argument, "It's far too easy to simply say that Obama won became of "hope" and "change" and the economic collapse."

I think it's not only easy, but largely correct!

As Nick Katzenbach noted in his post, "it is the message itself that determines whether or not any media is effective in delivering it."

Having spent a great deal of time reading about American elections, I am always struck by the varying explanations that are offered for why a candidate won. Dukakis riding in the tank tipped the balance for Bush, Nixon's sweating won the race for Kennedy, Ike's "I Shall Go To Korea" speech sealed the deal etc. But in the end, these events are blips not determinative events. What matters in elections is the vision and ideas of the candidate, and how they best match the political mood of the country.

Obama's mastery of new media helped him win the race; but only so far as it aided him in transmitting a message that resonated with millions of Americans. As others have suggested, even if John McCain had the most advanced new media campaign possible it wouldn't have changed the fact that he had no compelling rationale for his candidacy and campaign. "Change" was the watchword of the 2008 campaign; and no candidate did a better job of capturing that message and making it seem real to voters than Obama.

It's ironic that in a campaign defined by its technological advancements and by the idea of political change it was an old fashioned tool that helped Obama most effectively get this message across - the campaign speech.