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The phenomenon started about eight years ago as presidential candidates decided to use the Internet to draw younger audiences.

Now that campaign plan has trickled down. Look on the Web and you'll see sites for gubernatorial candidates Haley Barbour and John Arthur Eaves and lieutenant gubernatorial candidates Phil Bryant and Jamie Franks, as well as other statewide candidates. Some are very basic; others are more elaborate and even include the candidates' television commercials.

The trickle-down effect to the local races has begun. Regional candidates - Mabel Murphree, a Republican, and Brandon Presley, a Democrat in the public service commissioner's race for the Northern District - have latched onto the Web with sites that promote their candidacy.

"It means it's finally hit the country side," said political scientist Marty Wiseman, director of the Stennis Institute of Government at Mississippi State University.

Not that long ago, only "techies and eggheads" on college campuses could use e-mail and the Internet, Wiseman said. Now nearly everyone from farmers to stay-at-home moms access the Internet.

Levels of sophistication

Some of the candidates' sites are more sophisticated than others. For example, Everett Dutschke, a Republican candidate for the state House of Representatives in District 16, has a Web site (www.mississippivoters.com) that plays music, has loads of photographs and lots of information about his take on the issues.

Another candidate for the Legislature in House District 18, Lawrence Deas (www.deasforrepresentative.com) has a Web site that even takes credit cards and Pay Pal, an Internet cash service, for donations to the Democrat's campaign effort. The site also has a gallery of photos and some speeches.

Murphree's Web site (www.murphreeforpsc.com) has an expanded biography, a photo, a letter to voters and contact information. Presley's site (www.votepresley.com) has a few more photos and buttons, but none of them click through to other pages.

Local candidates haven't learned how to use the Internet to their advantage, said Ralph Braseth, director of the Gale S. Denley Student Media Center at the University of Mississippi.

They need to make it easy through other media for voters to come to them and participate in the campaign, he said.

The Pay Pal button is a great idea. "The easier they make it, the more people will do it," Braseth said.

These are early adopters, he said, and more will follow in subsequent elections.

"It's in its infancy," Braseth said.

Contact Daily Journal county-courts reporter Leesha Faulkner at 678-1590 or leesha.faulkner@djournal.com.