The magazine article leads with an account of how bloggers and others also are using Google AdWords to attack the political candidates they oppose.

Information Wars
by Heather Greenfield

In a Senate race that hinged on 9,329 votes, 315,508 people saw a Web page with a Google ad that read "Learn about George Allen. Did George Allen use racial slurs?" Nearly 1,000 people clicked on that link, which took them to a CBS News article about the Virginia incumbent's alleged racism.

The ad was targeted to computer users in Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina, and West Virginia, in hopes of reaching Virginia voters at home or at work. Although it's impossible to gauge whether the small advertisement that popped up in response to Google searches on "George Allen" played a role in the defeat of the Republican senator from Virginia last November, liberal blogger Chris Bowers is delighted with his $326 ad buy.

"I certainly think the money we put into the search-engine-optimization campaign was well spent, and other campaigns would be wise to [copy] it," said Bowers, a regular contributor to MyDD, a popular liberal blog.

Campaign consultants who specialize in so-called new media were aware of the tactic's potential even before the 2006 mid-term elections. Asked to identify the most effective tool or strategy that a candidate could use in the final weeks of a campaign, both liberal and conservative consultants cited search-engine ads tied to key words or phrases.

Mark SooHoo, vice president of Campaign Solutions, an online strategy company serving conservatives, said that buying Google AdWords or the equivalent on Yahoo or MSN reaches voters ready to pay attention. Advertisers choose key words and create ads around them. When people search online for information on that topic, the ads appear to the right of the search results.

"It's a good, low-cost, low-barrier entry, easy-to-set-up way to get involved," SooHoo said. Candidates get name exposure free of charge, he said, and their campaigns pay only for the number of times their ads are clicked on.