Mike Allen of the Politico reports on a new study by the E-Voter Institute which confirms what we've known all along: The Internet is the modern campaign trail, and you need to be working it if you're a political candidate (if you want to connect with folks, that is).

You don’t have to be a blogger to be involved. A study to be released by the E-Voter Institute this afternoon found that heavy consumers of online political information have “high rates of activism” that include e-mailing friends and family about a candidate, contributing online and attending events in response to e-mail.

“We detect a trend here,” the authors report. “In the old days, activists had to go somewhere to show their interest in a candidate or cause — attend a rally or fundraiser, participate in a phone bank at a campaign office, write a check and drop it in the mail.”

Now, though, virtual activists in what the report calls “the new political landscape” are telling their MySpace and Facebook friends about campaign rallies and candidate positions.

“While candidates have focused on collecting e-mail addresses, we see the rise of the online social networks as a way for the peer-to-peer communications that grassroots activists strive for to get their messages out,” adds the study, which is called “Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear: Change Is Accelerating in the Political Landscape.”

The only thing I'd change about this report is changing every use of the word "new" to "modern." How much longer can folks seriously call this stuff new?

Mike Allen of the Politico reports today about a MoveOn.org for the Right:

Veteran Republicans say they have quietly raised millions of dollars for a pair of nonprofit organizations that will launch this fall with the ambitious aim of providing a conservative counterweight to the liberal MoveOn.org, Politico.com has learned.

The issues and education group, which has a plan to enlist hundreds of thousands of small donors, aims to be active in the 2008 presidential election, according to Republicans involved in the effort. Organizers, who include veterans of the last three Republican White Houses, would not give specifics on how much money the group has raised so far or who its donor base is.

The president and chairman of the board will be Bradley A. Blakeman, a lawyer who appears frequently on television as a Republican analyst and was a member of President Bush’s senior staff during his first term.

“We’re in the formative stages of creating a new group that will give voice and hope to conservatives everywhere who believe in peace through strength and limited government,” Blakeman said. “We expect to have more to announce sometime down the road.”

Revolution.