Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published an interesting article covering the growth in online advertising spending by political campaigns. According to the article, online advertising is expected to hit $80 million for the 2008 Presidential campaign, this is a whopping 275 percent increase over 2004. Many of the ads are displaying on blogs that don’t speak favorably of the candidates. The article states:

Generally speaking, buying ads on blogs doesn’t provide candidates with a guarantee of positive coverage. Many bloggers gleefully post scathing critiques of candidates that run alongside their ads. And accepting an ad by no means indicates a blogger supports a candidate.
I think that the candidates are slowly becoming more open to web based advertising, and it’s a good thing. Additionally, blogs are probably the best investment by the candidates because it gives people the opportunity to have direct interaction with the candidates. Well maybe not the candidates, but people that are hired by the candidates, and that’s what counts right? Imagine if a candidate actually wrote one of the blog entries them self, that would be pretty profound. Have any examples of candidates that do this?