Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama promises to appoint the nation's first chief technology officer if elected.

Last week he made mobile history by sending a text message to 2.9 million people announcing that he picked as his running mate Sen. Joe Biden, who isn't beloved by the geek elite. Biden scored a 37.5 percent on the voter guide for CNET, a technology news site.

Sen. John McCain, meanwhile, has told the press he doesn't send e-mails and is still getting accustomed to using the Internet. But the same doesn't go for his running mate, the BlackBerry-wielding Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who had bloggers buzzing early Friday about her tech-centric lifestyle. She's also three years younger than Obama.

Does the next president need to be wired to gain the vote of the American people? It's an issue that has been raised frequently in technology communities and exploited by campaigns to gain an advantage.

''In this day and age, you got to be seriously out of touch to not know how to use the Internet,'' said Ian Fisher, 24, a University of Florida law student from Plantation who supports Obama. ``My 94-year-old great-aunt knows how to use the Internet.''

Obama's campaign showcased its techno brawn by sending text messages announcing his running mate. Nielsen Mobile reported it was the single largest U.S. mobile marketing event.

Obviously, knowing how to text-message or blog isn't going to make or break an election. But technology is essential to culture.

''No group ever wants to think the issues that are important to them are so unimportant to the candidate that they don't bother understanding them,'' said Kevin M. Wagner, assistant professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University. He's writing the book Click and Reboot: How the Internet is Revolutionizing American Politics.

''For many people, the connectivity to the president is important,'' Wagner said, and when a candidate says or does something that contradicts with their lifestyle, ``they feel like the president can't empathize with their situation.''

This might hurt McCain, who told The New York Times in July that he was not computer savvy, saying, ``I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon.''

Even though McCain may not be wired on a personal level, his campaign surely has a strong online presense. On Thursday, the first ad that popped up when you searched ''Biden'' on Google was a McCain video. It quotes Biden when he was running for president, questioning Obama's experience. McCain's campaign out-bid Obama to make sure its ad was on top.

That was a buzz topic Thursday at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, according to Ian Rowe, MTV's senior vice president of strategic partnerships.

''Senator McCain has been able to produce a number of video ads that aren't even being released nationwide on television,'' said Rowe, who is overseeing MTV's campaign coverage. ``But because of the viral nature of the Internet, they are having as much of an impact as someone who would have purchased television time.''

While critical issues for the campaign remain -- like the economy, environment, healthcare and the Iraq war -- a growing bloc of voters are demanding that their politicians understand the importance of technology in America's future.

George Gonzalez, associate professor of political science at the University of Miami, said technology is not so much a communications instrument, but technology has political implications. If there is a problem to be solved like the climate crisis, technology is promoted as the answer.

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