It is conventional wisdom these days that Republicans are playing catchup on the Internet -- David All and GOP techPresident contributors excepted.

But Democrats shouldn't take their perceived online edge for granted. The GOP is aware of the gap and just hired a big gun to get its Internet operation back in the game.

Ben Smith at the Politico reports today that the RNC has hired Yahoo! exec and former Slate co-founder Cyrus Krohn as their eCampaign Director.

Cyrus' first order of business -- get a new title. eCampaigning, eNewsletters, eAnything sounds as dated as a pack of 5.25" floppy discs.

That being said, maybe some old school thinking is just what the GOP needs:

"There's a lot of activity going on on the Web that's not being fully harnessed now, largely because of the fad factor," [Krohn] said in an interview from Yahoo!'s Santa Monica, Calif., office.

He argues that the underused political frontier isn't new social sites like YouTube and MySpace but the (relatively) old titans of the Web, presumably referring to firms such as AOL, Yahoo!, Microsoft's MSN and their Latino cousins.

"I look at the universe of some of the sites that have fallen out of favor that still have audiences that anyone would be attracted to – audiences in the hundreds of millions," Krohn said, adding that he would not "rely so much on the sites that are so much in the lexicon today."

Krohn has a point.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 26 million or 13% of all Americans over 18 turned to the Internet for political news on a typical day during last year's midterm elections. Considering the number of people over 18 who actually vote, that's a huge number.

But an earlier, more comprehensive study found that Internet users are four to five times as likely to get their news from MSM sites or Internet portals than blogs.

The most current statistics from Pew reveal that while 37% of Americans get news online on a daily basis, only 7-10% watch video, use a social network or read a blog.

Online strategists for both parties would be wise to keep these statistics in mind. Blogs and social network sites are incredibly important to reach activists, donors journalists and opinion makers.

A good place to reach a large number undecided voters they are not.

As we move through the primaries and enter the general election, campaigns and political parties will need to do more than build a big crowd for a rally. They will need to communicate their message to millions of voters on a daily basis.

Political professionals assume that TV is the only medium with that type of reach, yet the platforms favored by Krohn do have large audiences and, unlike TV, these audiences are growing.

I disagree with Krohn that YouTube and MySpace are fads. Fads disappear and clearly YouTube and MySpace aren't going anywhere. If anything, they are growing by leaps and bounds.

It is true that even the biggest blogs might lag far behind large Internet portals and national news websites in traffic, but one can argue the influence of certain blogs is far mightier than the editorial board of many major newspapers.

So, where does this leave campaigns? Should they listen to Krohn and ignore "fads"? Or should they continue to court the blogosphere and gather hordes of supporters on Facebook?

I suggest doing both.

Any campaign would be foolish not to appreciate the important role of new media in the electoral process. But there is also a great silent majority of users on the web that both parties ignore far too often.