The first election that was supposed to be determined by the internet was 2004. It was then that Democratic candidate Howard Dean pioneered use of the blogosphere to raise unprecedented funds, then that major media figures, such as Dan Rather of CBS News, were brought low by web-snipers, and then that exit polls, leaked first to the web, convinced everyone, including me, that John Kerry had won. Bliss was it then to be a blogger — as countless, breathless new stories reminded us.

All that seems a long time ago now. And if we’ve learnt anything about the new media, it is that they continue to evolve and surprise. Blogs were and are central to the online discourse, their personal touch managing to present information in a way that seems to suit the internet audience best. But something else is happening now that may give those blogs even more power: they are ceding to, or incorporating, video. And video — more than any words — has true political punch.

The congressional elections last November showed that in abundance. Hand-held videocams in any citizen’s hands gave thousands of complete nobodies the power to record and expose and engage politicians in real time to devastating effect. To take the most glaring example: Senator George Allen made a minor racist remark at a rural campaign stop in the heart of his conservative home state, Virginia. In days gone by, it would have been a completely trivial piece of base retail politics, and instantly forgotten. Without a hostile videocam and the blogosphere, Allen would have cruised on to victory. But the damning video found its way to YouTube, and then it was carried by the TV networks, and before long Allen’s attempt at re-election hit a brick wall.

Last week, the increasing range of mischievous blog-video was on full display. There was a posting on YouTube of John McCain allegedly dozing through President Bush’s state of the union address (he was merely looking down). There was a spliced blog-video of candidate Mitt Romney, contrasting his pro-choice statements in a 1994 debate with his pandering to the religious right today.

There was another video compiling crisp, staccato clips of McCain’s evolving positions on the Iraq war over the past few years. Yes, we all know that McCain has found himself in some difficult spots supporting Bush for two terms of presidential mismanagement. But when you actually see him on tape flip-flopping like a mackerel in a bucket it’s hard to see him the same way again.

You know in your head that he once called televangelist Jerry Falwell an “agent of intolerance” and recently gave a speech at the university Falwell founded. But actually watching him say one thing and then do another within seconds of each other has an altogether more devastating effect.

Then there was the simple gotcha clip, edited on YouTube, of Senator Hillary Clinton singing the national anthem. For some reason, her lapel microphone was still on and you could hear her moaning off-key like some jogger singing obliviously along to her iPod. Ouch.

It had no real political point, of course, it just enabled us to laugh at her. However, it was an improvement on her own dreadful attempt to produce a YouTube video, which she used to announce her campaign for the presidential nomination the previous week. “Let the conversation begin!” was her leitmotif. “Please make it stop!” was the involuntary response of many horrified Americans.

Citizen journalism is one thing. Citizen television is another. It brings the revolutionary potential of the blogosphere to the explosive power of the visual image. One day we will become accustomed to it, able to discount the inevitable distortions it will bring. But not yet — and one can safely predict that at some point in the wide-open race for the American presidency in 2008 at least one candidate will be destroyed by video-blogs and one may be handed a victory. Every gaffe will matter much more; and every triumph can echo for much longer.

When online video merges with television itself, the impact will surely be even greater. That hasn’t fully happened yet — and may take another election cycle or two to be fully felt. But you can see the logic now. People will not watch the conventions in real time the way they did in decades past. They will not even watch the canned evening programmes that now pass for party conventions. They will wait for the video of the events to be spliced, diced and edited and put online minutes, hours or days later.

I recall the way in which the Golden Globes were viewed this year. Few people sat through the event on TV. The next day, however, many downloaded clips of the more embarrassing acceptance speeches or the more touching moments. It’s more efficient. And less informative. That’s the future of the political convention.

The only technological change that might put a brake on this move towards short attention span splice-and-dice politics is high-definition television, now beginning to reach a mass market in America. Yes, I know it doesn’t sound that innovative to be able to watch John Kerry bore on in scarily precise pixels, or scan the screen to see if you can see where Nancy Pelosi might have injected the Botox. But the remarkable way in which high-definition TV (HDTV) strips away the sense of a lens between you and the subject could bring retail politics home far more effectively than television ever has before.

Imagine a video of a small kitchen-table gathering in Iowa during primary season. If you’ve seen HDTV, you’ll know what I mean. Suddenly you’re there. The mediation of media is wiped clean, as if the screen itself has disappeared. The technology instantly turns a distant kitchen table into your kitchen table. It brings the candidate into your space. It enables a form of democratic scrutiny and realism we have never known before.

Will we take full advantage of it — and sit back and absorb a candidate in all his or her complexity? Probably not. The short attention span YouTube form has far more appeal. But online video will soon improve: online HDTV cannot be far away. And if those longer events reveal a nugget of political gold, you can be sure it will end up online somewhere — and the viral nature of peer-to-peer communication will do the rest. Maybe we will have the best of both worlds: real insight if you want it; citizen-edited highlights if you’ve got better things to do.

Television altered democratic life in every developed country in the last century. The difference in this one will be that the editors and producers and channels and media companies will cease mediating it. Television will be in the voters’ hands. And democracy will just have to cope.

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