Schlough, in addition to IT operations, is responsible for the AlFranken.com Web site content and production, and all online communication channels, including YouTube and Flickr.

"Anything with an on/off switch, they end up putting in my court," Schlough says.

Schlough runs three different networks - one for visitors, one for staff, and a VoIP system. He runs two T1s in a multi-link bundle, along with a separate logical circuit for visitors. For help, he has one other staff member who is "mostly on the finance side - accounting and reporting," and an intern.

When asked how many different IT hats he has to wear, Schlough replied that he has to wear "Kind of… all of them." The job certainly requires a large breadth of skills - and sometimes transitioning between them can be difficult.

"If I was working on one project, say in Java, and a bug came up in a different system or a different language, it would always take some time to rev up to the new environment. You kind of get your head set in that other space," said Schlough. "Here, with campaigning and the schedule, and all the different aspects of the campaign that I manage, I often don't really have any time to make the transition, so you're really going for one problem, one challenge to the next with really no time to realign yourself. The depth and breadth of those challenges might be as rudimentary as some HTML coding or image processing, or as difficult as trying to figure out why part of our network is underperforming."

Still, Schlough says that his network, running on Cisco hardware, hasn't given him many problems yet, besides an implementation hiccup or two.

Schlough is optimistic about the possibility of technology allowing for better governance. He feels that during the last election, in 2004, while there was the beginning of social networking technology taking hold among users, it was limited to people who were more experienced online. Now, however, so many more people are adding content and participating.

"The more people are interacting with their public officials and the other citizens that are concerned about what's going on in the American political discourse, the better off we all are," said Schlough. "The Internet gives people an opportunity to go into longer discussion on what things mean and what politics and different issues mean in their lives. Too often politics just boils down to sound bites. Citizens have an opportunity on the Web to engage in more complex and drawn out conversations about the political machinations that take place in Washington D.C., or in their statehouse or state senate that really matter to their lives. Reading what people that disagree with you, or connecting with people that disagree with you on a policy point can be a really enlightening thing for folks. It's important to listen to all sides of an issue, and the Internet certainly provides many, many sides to all of the issues."

"Video online is becoming more of an accepted communication medium in politics, and I think YouTube plays a big part of that… People are going to post videos about candidates, from and about their own point of view. I think that's growing in importance as a communication medium. And, it is a revolutionary way for us to reach out to voters and to Americans and talk about the campaign. We've never been able to deliver so much content so quickly to so many people, in such a compelling way. I think YouTube [in campaigns] is here to stay."

In addition to uploading videos of Franken to YouTube, Schlough uses Flickr to host photos, connects with Franken supporters via Facebook and MySpace, and works with Franken's staffers to help sort through the numerous messages he gets and pass them on to the candidate, who can then respond to them.

He's also implementing a unique Web 2.0 application, done in Flash and using XML and MySQL, that presents an interactive map of the state where campaign events are marked with a pin. Users can look at past and upcoming campaign events, and clicking on an event will bring up related YouTube videos, Flickr galleries, and blog posts. There's also an automated interactive photo gallery that uses an icon based on the campaign's official vehicle to illustrate where the Franken campaign has visited. The idea came from Schlough's work at Target.com as a consultant. One thing he noticed was that interactive technology was being applied to messaging in the retail space, yet no one seemed to be doing it in politics. He decided to apply what he learned from the private sector in building compelling Web apps to the political campaign.

"If I had to boil down my job here with Al [Franken], I like to think of the campaign as a narrative - a dialogue - with the public. It's an ongoing discussion. The Internet provides so many opportunities to keep the dialogue moving and keep telling our story about Al's position on the issues and where he's been, and where he's from, and how he would approach some of the really serious problems facing our country. It's really important for politicians to understand the Web and the communities - all the different varied communities around it, and really communicate with people efficiently and effectively, and in a productive way."

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Editorial Note: We attempted to contact incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman and his re-election campaign staff for their perspective on these issues in the interest of a more complete story. They declined to comment. However, we offer them a standing opportunity to speak with us on these matters at a later date.

At the time we wrote this article, we were unaware that the Democratic nomination for Senate was contested and failed to contact the Mike Ciresi campaign for input. However, we have given the Ciresi campaign a right-of-reply as well.