Gravel becomes an "Internet Sensation"
In the week after the first major Democratic debate, little-known candidate generates unprecedented attention on-line.

Following his remarkable performance at the first debate in South Carolina on April 26th, web-surfers flocked to Presidential hopeful and former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel's website (www.gravel2008.us ) causing it to briefly shut down due to overwhelming traffic. "Bless our web team, they haven't slept in a week." said Gravel spokesperson Shawn Alexander Colvin.

Indeed, Gravel has started outperforming the more popular candidates on both sides of the political aisle on the Internet. According to CBS News, "on the Internet, Gravel is a sensation-a refreshing face amid a sea of cookie-cutter candidates seen as typical politicians."

Once Gravel's newfound base learned that the senator had yet to be invited to the June 3rd CNN-sponsored debate, supporters flooded CNN with phone calls and e-mails. Within 72 hours, Gravel had received his invitation to New Hampshire. "CNN phoned to say that we'd 'met the criteria' to attend," said Colvin.

Later that day, USA Today proclaimed that Mike Gravel was "soon to be a household name" and noted that the word "Gravel" had become the 15th most popular search on the Internet.

On Digg.com, a "new media" site where users post links to articles and then let other members of the "Diggnation" determine which stories deserve the most exposure, the two top items on last week's political page were about Mike Gravel.

And according to Alexa, an internet monitoring company, during the past week, Mike Gravel generated nearly twice as much traffic on the internet than Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, and three times as much traffic as Rudy Giuliani. For Senator Gravel, this represents a 1,614% jump in Internet traffic.

This isn't the first time a "long shot" candidate has enjoyed an explosion in popularity thanks to the Internet. In 2003, current Democratic party chairman Howard Dean was able to emerge from relative obscurity to mount a formidable challenge to his more established rivals with the help of "netroots" fundraising and blog activity on his "Dean for America" website.

by Michael Connolly Virtual Staff Gravel 08