John Edwards launches virtual campaign

Last August Mark Warner became the first presidential candidate to campaign in Second Life.  Within a few months he dropped out of the race.  Now John Edwards has set up a campaign headquarters in Second Life.  Will his campaign meet a similar fate? Or will 2008 be the year of the Second Life Presidential Debate?

Jerimee Richir set up the unofficial (for now) headquarters for the Edwards campaign, and ZDnet has an interview with Richir’s avatar, Jose Rote.

Rote has some interesting ideas on how a Second Life campaign can affect Edwards’ real-life run for president.  Second Life users tend to be first adapters and frequent blog contributors (Rote estimates that half of Second Life users maintain blogs), so any buzz that is generated within the virtual environment will quickly translate into online buzz.

From what I can tell, Edwards doesn’t have an avatar and no officials from his campaign have appeared within Second Life yet.  Should Rote’s campaign gain some traction, I would bet that Edwards will follow Warner into the virtual world.  Hopefully other candidates will join in, too.

The 2006 elections became known as the You Tube elections.  I'm claiming it first - 2008 will be the year of the Second Life Elections.