One of the yet untold stories of the Barack Obama campaign is about his use of technology. Obama’s presidency is “historical” in soooo many ways that no one is talking about the fact that his campaign represents a coming-of-age for political new-media like blogs and social networks. Of course we can trace the use of new media all the way back to the McCain campaign of 2000 and then, of course, the Dean campaign of 2004. But no one had yet used new media to drive a winning campaign.

And because of technology, the campaign may never really “end.” As David Carr writes in the Times:

Mr. Obama will have not just a political base, but a database, millions of names of supporters who can be engaged almost instantly. And there’s every reason to believe that he will use the network not just to campaign, but to govern. His e-mail message to supporters on Tuesday night included the line, “We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I’ll be in touch soon about what comes next.” The incoming administration is already open for business on the Web at Change.gov, a digital gateway for the transition.

Every political campaign now has the potential to become a “movement.” Except Republicans campaigns. Republicans are at a natural disadvantage when it comes to this kind of organization and not just because their supporters tend to be old guys who look a lot more like McCain than they do me. They are also at a disadvantage because GOP voters are more individualistic. They don’t generally like the idea of “joining.” And libertarians are even more so. There is no libertarian mob. Unless you’re talking about the geeks at Barnes & Noble arguing with each other about gold standards and positive rights.

Carr goes on:

The mob, flush with victory, is at hand, but instead of pitchforks and lanterns, they have broadband and YouTube. Like every other presidency, the Obama administration will have its battles with the media, but that may seem like patty-cake if it runs afoul of the self-publishing, self-organizing democracy it helped create — say, by delaying health care legislation or breaking a promise on taxes.

I think this is a little optimistic. People like to be entertained. Being part of a “movement” to elect “change” is much more exciting than the nuts and bolts of governing. It remains to be seen whether or not this energy can be carried over. Moreover, Carr is assuming that the “movement” was about Health Care and Taxes. But I suspect it was about Obama.

In some ways though, this story is a frightening one because it is about how easily someone can create a “movement” online and how much influence that “mob” can have over the course of events. It is startling to think that a “movement” no longer needs to be tied to a specific agenda, but instead can be driven through the most abstract language. Obama, for all his similarities to Reagan, never presented himself with teh ideological clarity present in “Government is the problem.”

Carr closes his article with a great quote from Andrew Rasiej, founder of the Personal Democracy Forum: “Yes, we have met Big Brother, the one who is always watching. And Big Brother is us.”

Indeed.