Brian Dubie’s imported campaign gurus from Virginia tout the virtues of a web savvy campaign. The man running Dubie’s web effort has written an article about the vital importance Facebook played in electing the arch conservative Bob McDonnell in Virginia and centerfold Sen. Scott Brown in Massachusetts. Last winter he praised Lt. Gov. Dubie for the long hours and personal attention he puts into his Facebook page.  

Perhaps this web presence alerted the Free Press that the internet has finally arrived in Vermont politics.

VtBuzz is curating (their word) a six part exploration of the gubernatorial candidate websites. The ‘curate’ starts himself off as if awakening from an eight year dream with the observation that times have changed since 2002, noting:

How the world has changed since the 2002 election, which brought the current governor, Jim Douglas, to the top of state government. That was a different era for politics. Websites hardly were in use this way by state candidates.  Now they are in the forefront of all political campaigns.

Yeah and ‘What’s with these kids in their bellbottoms?’

The series to date has covered Dubie, Racine and Markowitz. (I understand earlier today Susan Bartlett was also curated.)Dubie’s webpage came first, gets some technical criticism and is faulted for self promotion [?] but the curate just can’t resist a co-pilot and points out the official born-in-a-log-cabin-regular-guy qualities Dubie is said to possess.

The Racine and Markowitz web pages fair better in technical criticism yet the curator levels a different eye at these two. With Racine he notes the slew of statewide endorsements, including a glowing one from Gov. Dean. Then he digs deep and wonders with concern if it’s enough:

…considering his [Dean’s] cult-like reputation among liberals.  ‘

‘Why can’t you be more like Brian?’ he suggests for Markowitz in his What’s missing category. He proposes for Deb, something that at first glance I thought might be a joke

Her own Dubie tour of the business landscape would surely be an eye-opener.

My guess is that she doesn’t have the same amount of time on her hands as our Lite Gov. Dubie.