The emerging protest movement is almost the mirror image of the grass-roots campaign that helped sweep Obama into office by pulling in people who’d never been politically active. This time Obama is seeing the other side of what can happen when people are motivated, connect over the Internet and seemingly reach a tipping point that turns them from onlookers into activists.

Don Surber comments on the town hall meetings: “Congressmen wanted to turn them into rallies for health care. That may be the political boo-boo of the year.”

In the age of transparency, when motivated people can easily connect via the web and use social networking tools like Facebook, Twitter and blogs to become instant activists, the old methods of stage-managing events such as town-hall meetings to turn them into rallies as political theater isn’t going to work. The old spin methods don’t work any more. The viral nature of online communications has seen to that.

Blogs will play an important role in this election by default. Over the next year, traditional news organizations will do the occasional “take out” on the race. …  But day in and day out the gossip, the trivia, the minutiae, and the obscure details that thrill political junkies will be found on the blogs. … Blogs can provide information that is not general enough for mass media. That will be especially true for special-interest issue blogs. No doubt SayUncle will keep us informed on where the candidates are on gun issues, for example.

Blogs do not, by and large, have the reach of traditional news organizations. At least right now. But they do have a great deal of influence with political insiders. And they are often read by newspaper editors and television and radio news directors. Thus they often set the tone of campaign coverage. They can get the “talk right” for a candidate, or reveal the candidate to be a bumbling fool. This campaign, they may set the storylines that play out in the course of the campaign.

The founder of Mesh Media Strategies launched Tennessee’s first successful political blog in November 2001, with demonstrated impact on public policy decisions, campaigns and media coverage during its seven-year run. He now consults with candidates, campaigns and political organizations on how to use blogs and other social media as an “offensive weapon” and effective communications tool.

“While we’ve made extensive use of the Internet for some time, posting material on YouTube and Twitter offers new possibilities to inform people about our efforts to promote accountability and transparency in federal programs and operations,” Gene Dodaro, acting comptroller general for the United States, said in a statement Tuesday.

If you’re interested, the GAO is on Twitter @usgaolegal and @usgao.