Can Dotcoms Really Make Politics Pay?

By John Greenwald

With dotcoms imploding and voter apathy growing, this may seem an ill-omened time to launch a for-profit political website. Yet the Republican Convention swarmed last week with a new breed of dotcoms that offered everything from predictable punditry to floor-panning, 360[degree] webcams that online viewers could swivel with the click of a mouse.

The convention was both a litmus test and a coming-out party for the new for-profit political digerati, who occupied skyboxes and overflowed a media center that instantly became known as Internet Alley. At Voter.com a site reportedly backed by $50 million in venture capital, 35 computers in a Cyber Cafe spewed briefings, commentary and gavel-to-gavel coverage. "We want to combine really good traditional journalism with edgy contributions from the best guys," says Carl Bernstein, who as executive editor of Voter.com is among a bevy of Old Guard notables to be drawn to the brash new sites.

But color most onlookers skeptical. For one thing, the newcomers must vie for hard-core political junkies and insiders, who represent relatively few eyeballs. And this narrow slice of the market is being sought by such heavyweights as ABC, the Washington Post and CNN, each of which has a big Web presence, to say nothing of countless nonprofit sites that are chockablock with the skinny on your Representative's latest vote. "I liken the new sites to the specialty stores you see at Christmas," says Preston Dodd of Web watcher Jupiter Communications. "You wonder what they'll do after the elections, let alone for the next four years."

These newcomers hope to survive the old-fashioned way--by selling ads or peddling a product. For $200 a month, Voter.com will link a congressional hopeful's campaign page to the Voter.com site, which connects to such portals as msn, Juno and Excite. At rival Vote.com brainchild of former Clinton adviser Dick Morris, politicos can purchase e-mail lists or polling data collected from users of the site.

Some of these schemes have already come a cropper. LobbyForMe.com sought to market the lobbying skills of 12 former House members to ordinary folk. For a small fee, these big hitters would contact your member of Congress for you. Now founder Ron Gunzburger is redesigning the page to sell ads to interest groups. And if that doesn't work, well, LobbyForMe.com also owns Politics1.com which publishes an online newsletter and provides profiles of the candidates in virtually every race.

A look at other prominent sites:

-Grassroots.com Talk about bipartisan. George W. Bush adviser Condoleezza Rice and former Clinton spokesman Mike McCurry are directors of this site, which calls itself "your political-action network." In the spirit of togetherness, a page on abortion gives lobbying advice for both sides of the issue.

-Pseudo.com Its remote-control webcams got almost as much buzz as Bush's acceptance speech. Claims to be the largest provider of online TV.

-ABCNews.com All Sam All The Time. G.O.P. coverage featured Sam Donaldson's Web-only interviews.

-SpeakOut.com Briefing site polls viewers on issues and events, including their minute-by-minute reaction to Bush's speech. (Republicans loved it.)

-Time.com Convention features included daily "e-mail from the trail" on the online arm of this magazine.

-VoxCap.com Political updates, issues and forums. Sister sites include Intellectual-Capital.com a webzine edited by former Delaware Governor Pete du Pont.

-WashingtonPost.com On Politics page serves up news and analysis plus daily satires of current events.

-Politics.com Packages polls, forums and fund-raising data. Recently sold an 80% stake in Medinex, a physicians' office-management site, to help stanch a flow of red ink that topped $6 million.

Consolidations such as Politics.com and Medinex could be just the beginning as the new sites struggle for online viewers and revenues. In Philadelphia last week, a cautious McCurry was pressing the flesh and putting forth the softest of sells. "The revolution hasn't happened yet," the former White House spokesman said of online politics. But when it does, "we want to be the premier site selling to organizations and groups that are using the Internet to organize." Which is just the problem, of course, because so does everyone else.

--Reported by Mark Coatney and Frank Pellegrini/Philadelphia, Elisabeth Kauffman/Nashville and Eric Roston/New York

With reporting by Mark Coatney and Frank Pellegrini/Philadelphia, Elisabeth Kauffman/Nashville and Eric Roston/New York