There's no telling if he's going to buy a tape from the Video Professor, or just have his son-in-law sit down with him for a few days, but John McCain has decided to learn how to use the internet.

"I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself," McCain told the* New York Times* in an interview that appeared Sunday. "I don't expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need."

Even so, McCain bluntly admits, "I don't e-mail. I've never felt the particular need to e-mail."

That latter admission is surprisingly frank given that most people on Capitol Hill constantly keep up with work, and each other, via their BlackBerries.

It's also a comment that puts McCain decidedly out of step with the millions of Americans who've woven web, wireless and social networking technologies into the fabric of their daily lives – especially the so-called Millennial Generation, those born between 1982 and 2002.

Unlike large portions of previous young voter blocs, this connected generation votes (at least those who are old enough), and is very civic minded,according to the researchers.

In sharp contrast to McCain, Obama's campaign constantly updates the Obama's Twitter account with the candidates latest activities on the campaign trail. Obama has 46,195 followers on Twitter. He apparently follows 48,040 Twitter accounts.

Twitter, a service that people usually use to provide friends and acquaintances with personal updates and on-the-spot thoughts, fits with the personal tone and oratory used by Barack Obama to reach the Millennials. The Obama campaign's constant updates through its own blog, and through Twitter, helps to fuel a sense of collective involvement among his supporters: making them think they're part of the campaign, actively engaged with it, and with the candidate.

Obama's latest tweet on Sunday night, for example, let his supporters know that he spoke in San Diego at the National Council of La Raza's annual conference. The entry led to a YouTube video of the speech.

And on July 4th, Obama's campaign tweetedthat the candidate was "hosting a 4th July family picnic in Butte, MT, and celebrating Malia's 10th Birthday! Watch it live ..."

Prior to the advent of the web, it would have been unimaginable for a political candidate to provide these relatively frequent updates to such large numbers of people. And who would have wanted a fax with these kinds of details cluttering up the office?

But on the web, these updates are unobtrusive little notes, which can keep large numbers of ardent supporters filled in on the latest movements of their rock-star candidate – on their own schedule.

The McCain campaign, for its part, seems to have allowed a prankster to take over the John McCain name on Twitter: The latest entry, from a month ago, reads: "I'm going to the bathroom before my next speech! Coffee ran right through me!"

McCain has been the object of much ridicule by liberals in the past month because of his frank admission in a Yahoo/Politico interview that he's computer illiterate.

More recently, his aide Mark Soohoo was mocked mercilessly when he said at a politics and technology conference that McCain was "aware of the internet."

Yet the McCain campaign has hired tech-savvy staffers to liaise with bloggers online, and to get his campaign's key messages out online. They include Matt Lira, a former aide to Rep. Eric Cantor R-Va, and blogger Patrick Hynes, among others.

Even if he doesn't feel the need to e-mail, perhaps he should check out tools such as Twitter to reach the Millennials. It's not just about the coolness of such tools; it's about getting a candidate's unique persona and voice through a medium to connect to a new generation.

(For more on social media and political campaigns online, check out Jim Hopkinson's Wired.com podcast The Hopkinson Report.)

Photo: Associated Press/Jeff Chiu

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