WASHINGTON, D.C. — Will this be the MySpace election? Or will “Mr. Microtargeting” rule the day?

There are few better examples than politics of how winners write history. Candidates copy techniques and strategy from those who win elections, and they study the losers for what to avoid. The pattern includes online efforts.

The Internet has been in fairly broad use since the mid to late 1990s. That encompasses the 1996, 2000 and 2004 campaign cycles. The 2004 cycle was the first time that Web-based campaigning made an obvious difference in the field. Howard Dean was a little-known candidate until his Web fundraising grabbed everyone’s attention and catapulted him to a lead in the polls.

What Dean found out was that online dominance doesn’t necessarily translate into real-life votes. Dean stumbled badly in the Iowa caucuses and never recovered.

No one knows if the same fate awaits Web-heavy campaigns in 2008. The one clear thing is that none of the candidates can afford to ignore online campaigning.

Michael Cornfield says the campaigns have different signatures online. He teaches at George Washington University and is an expert on the relationship between media and politics.

For Democratic candidate Barack Obama, that signature means using sites like Facebook and MySpace to connect lots of people in cyberspace. The connections allow supporters to make connections and keep their enthusiasm high.

Republican candidate Mitt Romney hired a man Cornfield calls “Mr. Microtargeting.” Alex Gage runs Target Point Consulting, which takes information on voters and refines it for detailed analysis. The results allow campaigns to target specific voters in specific areas and, in theory, makes the campaign more likely to get results.

The other candidates use other methods. Cornfield points to candidate John McCain’s effort to make sure his campaign leads in search engine optimization. That process puts his campaign near the top for Web searches on a variety of subjects, thus increasing exposure.

Sen. John Edwards is copying the strategy of MoveOn.org, a strategy Cornfield says relies on quick shifts. Both the Edwards campaign and MoveOn shift from one subject to another quickly, making appeals based on stories that are getting high levels of attention from the media.

Other candidates have used the Web to address perceived weaknesses as well as Hillary Clinton. Clinton used Web video to reach out to voters when she announced her candidacy, and she selected a campaign theme song with online help. The result is a Web presence that personalizes her and helps soften her image.

There is one major exception. Cornfield said Rudy Giuliani’s campaign made do with a horrendous, “almost defiantly abysmal,” Web site for months before updating it late this summer.

What all this means for Iowa voters is up in the air. Political science professor Steffen Schmidt teaches Iowa State University students about politics, including a class on technology and democracy. He watches the campaign Web sites closely, but isn’t sure whether any of them will have the impact the candidates want.

Schmidt says Web campaigning is a new tool, but the goal is the same as traditional politics: Get as many of your supporters to the caucus or the polls as possible.

“If war is politics by other means, then the Internet is campaigning by different avenues,” Schmidt said. “It’s an opportunity to reach an audience using a new medium, an audience that isn’t, perhaps, usually interested in politics.”