I would like to reacquaint you with something called Second Life. Second life is this sort of video game that allows you to create a virtual version of yourself, ala The Sims, and, you know, sort of live in a little three dimensional virtual world. Here is a description from its website:

Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 3,631,035 people from around the globe.

You can even buy land there and stuff. It’s like voluntarily being in the Matrix.

Now, thus informed, I present you this from Slash Dot:

It may not be an official effort — yet — but thanks to a grass-roots effort, John Edwards has become the first presidential candidate to set-up-shop in Second Life (The virtual video game universe with lots of people and no real point). Jerimee Richir, whose avatar is called Jose Rote, paid-for and developed Edwards’ virtual headquarters, and, on a voluntary basis, is managing the in-world campaign. Considering that Second Life’s user numbers are much smaller than other social networks, such as MySpace and Facebook — aside from generating press coverage — will campaigning in Second Life actually win many votes? Rote says yes, and that ‘Second Life users are a unique audience, in that, they are first adopters. It is a smaller community, but I would argue it is a more influential community.’

President of E-Town. Now that might be a presidential race that John Edwards can actually win.

Oh, and to sign up for a free Second Life account, go here. I don’t endorse them, as I have never played second life, but I think this thing has the potential to be huge and so you might want to get in on it.

I wrote another article about Second Life in May of 2006 that explains what they are all about. It is here.