The Internet as a get out the vote tool.(Opinion)

The lesson from Howard Dean's failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination was that the Internet could raise money, but it couldn't produce votes. Now, with new tools, some of which did not exist six months ago, the Internet will produce votes.

In Colorado a state Senate candidate now taps into a nationwide database of 26 million e-mail addresses appended to voter file records and pulls out the 5,228 Democrats and 5,952 Independents in his district. The candidate surveys these voters and sends targeted messages based on their responses. Testing the messages by