Campaign Advantage President Emi Ireland has been teaching "Politics and the New Media"
at George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management (GSPM) this
summer, and the way she has been doing it could be a sign of the future for political
consultant training.

If you look at http://presscontrolshift.blogspot.com/ you will see that she has created a class blog, which not only contains her class-related comments to the students, but also contains her own political commentary as well.  If you look on the right hand column, you will see the class syllabus, reading schedule, and links to the material she covered in her class lectures.
http://www.emilienneireland.com/blackboard/index.html
http://www.emilienneireland.com/blackboard/schedule.html

The readings list provides links to the most recent articles on Internet campaigning, and
can be used as a refresher course by any political consultant.  Even the videos and other
materials she references will be of interest to politicians and consultants seeking to
incorporate the Internet into their campaign strategies.

While some of these features can be found in courses taught by Politics Online and other
leading Internet consultants, one feature that sets this website apart is the blogroll found in the right hand column.  Each of the 35 students in the class was required to create a blog, and blog daily for the first five weeks of class and four days a week for the last five weeks. 

Aside from posting on their own blogs daily, they also had to post daily on a classmate's
blog and post weekly on a mainstream blog. 

Note the left, right, and non-partisan blogs listed at http://www.emilienneireland.com/blackboard/info-register.html

Students reported that the blog transformed their lives, making even the most luddite
a Netizen.  They were proud of their online identities, and the quality of the work they
produced was higher than most papers that are handed in, graded, and thrown away
in the typical university course.  In fact, the quality was so good that the only other
required work product will be an Online Campaign Strategic Plan.
http://www.emilienneireland.com/blackboard/info-plan.html

It was time-consuming getting all students online, and Emi had to produce a separate
tech blog to help them with technical questions at http://askemi.blogspot.com , but the net result is a class of bloggers who have a first-hand knowledge of the strengths and
limits of online campaigning. 

More details will be in the third edition of "Winning Campaigns online."