Since Dean’s 2004 campaign blog and a snowball of agenda setting studies trying to prove it, this election is being influenced more than ever through abilities of the internet allowing true dialogue among candidates and the people. Yes…duh….of course. Well, here are a few examples:

Teaming up with ABC News, Facebook’s US Politics application lets users support a candidate on their profile and keep tabs on recent news and opinions of friends. ABC News poll results are given side by side the percent of Facebook users supporting each candidate, with Obama coming out on top with 58% of Facebook users, Hillary at 19%, and Edwards at 9%. C’mon Hill! On the republican side, Ron Paul leads with 38% of Facebook users, Romney at 16%, and Huckabee at 13%.

B.L. Ochman’s blog, which I absolutely love to read, points to Mike Arrington of TechCrunch being interviewed on ABC about their new site where readers can endorse candidates.

The popular social news site Digg has Digg the Candidates, where you can see what news stories the candidates are submitting and how many Digg friends they have. Obama comes out on top with 7,479 friends, Kucinich 6,667, and Hillary in 5th place with only 857 friends. On the republican side, Ron Paul is blowing everyone out of the water with 15,243 friends, Huckabee 1,001, and Romney and Giuliani in 4th and 5th place with only 606 and 552 friends, respectively.