Patrick Ruffini has an interesting piece on TechPresident noting that MittTV & HillaryHub, both of which have received stellar and unending press, aren’t exactly innovative. I won’t spoil the whole thing so go read it BUT I did want to wholly agree.

I love TechPresident & TechRepublican and all the other people out there talking about Web 2.0 and online campaigning but aside from the fundraising being done by Clinton & Obama online, I am not all that impressed yet with what the campaigns are doing to innovate online campaigning.

There is only one way to win an election and that is to turn people out to vote for you. The only way to really do that is to build up infrastructure, run a solid campaign, get good people working for you and then either be aligned with the public on issues or do a good job of completely demolishing the other person so that everyone thinks they aren’t aligned with the public.

Web 2.0 gadgets & Dashboard widgets & MySpace pages & YouTube videos are all wonderful, but they are tools and devices like anything. Are they more appealing and have more potential than say a lawn sign? Of course. Does that mean having them will actually win you an election? No. Even if you raise more money through them or you get a lot of free press, it doesn’t guarantee a win at all.

YOU NEED TO GET PEOPLE TO VOTE. Meanwhile with so much attention getting paid right now to building up the cyberinfrastructure of the campaigns and getting the 24/7 news cycles focused on YouTube videos, I have to wonder if most of the campaigns are actually missing something. You know, the voters who don’t come to Web sites like this one, follow every moment of the campaign and make themselves part of a “movement”.

If come January those people are left out by any or all of the campaigns then you can have all the widgets in the world and it won’t get you elected.