Paul Newell’s e-campaign gains steam

by Sebastian Benthall

Though rough around the edges, Paul Newell‘s campaign has started to take advantage of the internet’s finest social media institutions–or perhaps vice versa.

In the blogosphere, TOPP’s high-powered streets renaissance blog, StreetsBlog, has posted about Paul Newell after several anticipatory posts calling for challengers to Silver.

Meanwhile, while the first unofficial YouTube video announcing Newell’s candidacy was unflatteringly shot in a sports bar, his campaign has started to make a more careful contribution. The lighting on “Paul Newell For State Assembly” betrays the campaign’s inexperience and penury, but “Three Men in a Room” shows more promise.

Finally, in a story too illustrative of the ubiquity of social media to let fall through the cracks, The New York Observer quaintly reports:

Minutes after [Mayor Bloomberg’s political aide] Kevin Sheekey went on NY1 and blasted Sheldon Silver for not having the “courage” to vote on the mayor’s congestion pricing plan, Sheekey officially made a new Facebook friend: Paul Newell, one of two Democrats seeking to oust Sheldon Silver in the September primary.

I remember when Facebook was just a way to figure out whether anyone hot was planning to take your seminar. Now its a subtle indicator of political support. I’m glad the Observer is watching.