That crazy Brit, Ed Trelinski, points out a gnarly video which adapts Michael Wesch's uber-informative "Web 2.0...The Machine is us/ing us" vid to help promote SalesForce.com's "the Platform is a Service" brand push.

Via YouTube: "Force.com...the Platform is a Service."

CRM software is hardly as sexy as Web 2.0 or nifty socnet strategies, but it's the reason why some of our favorite companies are able to make the world of the "Long Tail" niche available and profitable. With its tool geared toward campaigns, CampaignForce, we can expect politicians to follow a similar effective/successful/commonsense strategy.

Or is there something that might prevent campaigns from embracing a quality CRM solution?

Maybe. I've personally talked to quite a few folks over at SalesForce.com and while their app for campaigns is killer, it's still far too expensive for any race except Presidential campaigns (Mitt Romney and Ron Paul both use it) and possibly a highly-competitive Senate race (I'm talking to you Virginia).

Look, I'm not suggesting the investment isn't worth every penny. It is. It's just that the people holding the keys to the treasure still think everything on the Internet should be free, dirt cheap, or made in the basement.

The argument against shuffling funds to the online strategy of course is that every dollar going in to an online solution is a dollar away from the media budget. And the media budget is the fat, juicy head -- often 80% of the campaign's total spending.

Fortunately, after this election cycle I'm hopeful that Mitt Romney and Ron Paul will make their experience with these top-notch products available as case studies.