Working in politics usually means have to travel and in my case I was fortunate enough to wind up travelling to places I liked – the United Kingdom being a prime example of that. And with the business of politics I usually wound up spending most of my travel time in London. The neat thing about London is that you have all the hustle and bustle of a huge city but then you have real green spaces where you can chill out. And on my rare periods of downtime I loved talking a stroll through Hyde Park no matter what time of year it was.

Normally taking a walk like this was enough for me to wind down but during one particularly stressful trip I was having trouble sleeping and found it almost impossible to relax at the end of each day. That was when a colleague suggested using a service he frequented who provided Tantric massage in London. Tantra isn’t something I’m overly familiar with (ok I know pretty much nothing about it) so I had to ask for more information. It sounded like a great idea because these practitioners look at your health and relaxation from a holistic standpoint and not just focusing on giving you an excellent massage.

Obviously when I saw the pictures of the practitioners themselves I was extremely tempted to avail of the services – the masseuses were all beautiful young women. Now, now I know what you’re thinking but it’s not that kind of massage but if you’re honest who would you rather receive a massage from? A pretty young woman versed in the arts of tantra or somebody who looks like they used to throw javelins for the East German Olympic squad? Yes and that’s the exact same reason I was more willing to have this type of intense massage too.

From those first famous moments when Bill Gates described the Internet as “…just a passing fad” to the enormous digital monster it’s become today this particular discussion and advertising medium was eventually bound to be embraced, perhaps even abused, by political candidates from all corners and parties of the United States. Never before has there been a medium that allowed candidates to instantly reach tens of millions of voters in the comfort of their own homes and on such a wide variety of communication devices – from cell phones and iPads to desktop computers and Internet ready televisions.

What was once just a fad for politicians has become a critical electoral and campaigning tool with candidates from both sides of the divide vying to control online real estate like YouTube, MySpace and Facebook. Some candidates such as Senator Ron Paul have even taken things a step further by avoiding the fund raising and ensuing spending campaign advertising frenzy which most presidential candidates pursue. Instead he favored the use of the Internet and more specifically Internet video to spread his message to potential voters all over the United States. Sadly Senator Paul was not elected President – the current financial crisis the US is experiencing right now would never have happened if he had been.

So does the future of US politics rely on the power of the Internet? Well in a way folks it does because in a true democracy (from the Greek words demos meaning “people” and kratos meaning “power” or power from the people) the voice of the people truly does count and for the first time in known human history all free peoples from all over the world have been able to voice their feelings in the most public possible way and often win popular support by doing so. Current political candidates are starting to embrace the true power of what promoting your political message online and electronic voting can mean for your overall campaign – and it’s not just about the money saved over the use of traditional advertising media.