No, I am not teaching a Poli Sci course - which is good for all of us.

If you'll recall a few weeks back there was a minor dust-up between Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic Congressman Tom Allen, who is hoping to take her spot in the Senate next year.

The squabble all centered around a tracker - a guy hired by the Maine Democratic party to follow Collins with a camera at public events - and whether the method followed in Maine's grand tradition of polite political discourse.

You may feel any number of ways about the character of politics in Maine, but tracking is something entirely new and different.

As a campaign tool political observers and operatives say tracking can be used as research on the opposition, but it can also make its way on the Internets, a la former Virginia Sen. George Allen's infamous "macaca" clip on YouTube.

That's just one of many new ways politicians and are trying to latch onto the "awesome power" of the Internet.

But the funny thing about the Internets is that no one really controls them, which makes it tough for campaigns that want to control every little detail about a politician and their policies.

In today's iHerald story we were really only able to scratch the surface of the issue, which touches on many key parts of a campaign, namely money and volunteers.

Obviously online fundraising is big, as Democrats and Republicans have found you can raise a lot of money by just asking people to send you small amouts of cash online.

Now campaigns, such as Allen and Collins specifically have Internet consultants - people to coordinate the message over blogs, MySpace, YouTube videos, etc.

What made the situation with the Collins campaign interesting is the involvement of Lance Dutson, who writes the conservative Maine Web Report.

Though he's a consultant to Collins, Dutson also operates independently of the campaign, which can create issues of its own online. (See MWR vs. Daily Kos second citation,)

But the bigger question is can campaigns do anything about the supporters and "free agents" who are either acting on their behalf or working against them?

Here's a few examples:

- Ah yes, who can forget Obama Girl who has a serious (and slightly naughty) thing for Sen. Barack Obama, D-IL. While it was harmless fun at first, it seems the Democratic presidential hopeful does not share the feeling. Yes, Obama girl, he's just not that into you.

- In the same vein there's the infamous 1984/Hillary Clinton spoof that was linked back to a Democratic strategist whose company had a link to Obama.

- Republican presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has had trouble deflecting some of his actions as mayor of New York ( this has made the rounds) but a group of activists in New York has taken issue with the former mayor's reversal on gay rights issues and are using Giuliani's own words against him.

There are numerous examples - probably as many as there are candidates - but it seems clear campaign's aren't going to flip some switch and either gain control of what is said and done on the internet. They also aren't likely to throw their hands up and stop using the Internet.

If anything it looks like politicians and their supporters are going to be leaning even more on blogs, crowdsourcing, social networking sites and more.

So to get the comments going here's some discussion questions:

- What do you think the impact of the Internet will be on the 2008 races?
- Can campaigns exert any control over how their candidate is presented online?
- Have you used the web to interact with candidates or campaign for a cause?

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