Final Biden and Dodd

So it's been a few days since the Iowa Caucus and the announcement from both the Biden and Dodd campaigns that they were ending their bids for the Presidency.

Biden: No change to the home page, but the blog has the following entry as of today:

Jan. 5 - Final entry, and thank you ALL for your courageous support of Senator Biden’s presidential candidacy. If only the Iowa Caucusgoers had heard Sen. Biden’s speech delivered in March, 2007 on the Senate floor:

“It’s about time we have the courage to stand up and say to the president ‘Mr. President, you have not only put us in harm’s way you have harmed us. I’m so tired of hearing on this floor about courage. Have the courage to tell the Administration, ’stop this ridiculous policy you have.’”

“So as long as the president keeps us on this ridiculous path, taking us off a cliff — I ask my colleagues, does anybody think they’re going to be able to sustain keeping American forces in Iraq, at 160,000, for another year and a half? How many times are we going to ask those 175,000 to rotate, three, four, five, six, seven times?”

“Mr. President, you’re leading us off a cliff. Stop!”

For updates on Senator Biden’s Senate legislation, please visit his Web site at:
http://biden.senate.gov/. Bye for now!

Over at the Facebook site there is no mention from the campaign or anyone that the campaign has ended. Comments on the wall from supporters show support for the candidate and are wondering if he'll be Sec. of State, and who he will endorse. But no message from the candidate or campaign. 9,207 supporters left.

Over at MySpace it's a similar situation -- only the blog import with the above message indicates that he has dropped out and supporters are posting their thoughts and well wishes. 15,253 left.

Dodd: No change here either -- the message that was posted right after the announcement is still on the home page, but the "live update" ticker is still running -- hmmmm...not sure how "live" it is anymore though. At the blog page there's no reference at all to the end of the campaign save for the "Post Caucus" speech ported in from YouTube. No text at all.

Facebook has no reference save for the supporters who are thanking the candidate. 2,414 supporters left.

Myspace similar results. Supporters want to know who he will endorse and are hoping that he will be Sen. Majority Leader. 9,095 friends left.

Final thoughts on Biden/Dodd

The question for the supporters/friends left behind is "what now?" and for the campaigns -- what do we do with all of our social networking sites such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube plus the blog and the website? I imagine that there is a lot that happens when a campaign folds -- but the online legacy is lurking there in a way that we have never had before. Folding a campaign is tough. However, in this day of social media, walking away from the many sites you have launched without posting notifications on every one is like being the star of the party and leaving without saying goodbye and hoping that everyone in the ballroom will find out about it some how.

Lessons learned for second-tier candidates -- capitalize on the social media, but have a strategy to fold them if you don't succeed. Actually that should be a lesson for all the candidates. If we aren't careful the information superhighway is going to be full of political litter at the end of the campaign season.