In recent decades, the presidential nominees of the Democratic and Republican parties have been either incumbent presidents, sitting or former vice presidents, sitting or former U.S. Senators, or sitting or former state Governors. The last major nominee from either party who had not previously served in such an office was General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who won the Republican nomination and ultimately the presidency in the 1952 election. Chester A. Arthur had held no federal or statewide office, before becoming Vice President and then President. Fourteen Presidents have previously served as Vice President. However only John Adams (1796), Thomas Jefferson (1800), Martin Van Buren (1836), Richard Nixon (1968) and George H. W. Bush (1988) began their first term after winning an election.
In 2008, the internet became a way for the users to connect with each other and with the campaign, like Dean's website had done in 2004. All of the major candidates had a website and utilized social networking like facebook and myspace. The popularity of a candidate could be measured by the number of friends on these sites as well as on websites like Hitwise, which listed the number of hits all of the presidential candidate's websites had each week. Internet channels such as YouTube were used by candidates to share speeches and ads for free. This also served as a forum for users to attack other candidates by uploading videos of gaffes. E-campaigning is subject to very little regulation. On March 26, 2006 the Federal Election Commission voted unanimously to "not regulate political communication on the Internet, including emails, blogs and the creating of Web sites." This decision made only paid political ads placed on websites subject to campaign finance limitations.
from "United States presidential election", Wikipedia
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