Obama loves to spend online

As the primaries trudge onward, 2008 presidential hopefuls are sticking to traditional media plans, with just a small amount of online ad spending, MediaWeek reports.

Though candidates have all exploited free web marketing ops, such as YouTube and MySpace profiles, they haven't saturated the major political sites with ad spending.

Though FoxNews.com carried ads for Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson, for example, it reported only mild spending from candidates.

The one exception, for the moment, appears to be search advertising. John McCain is reportedly running ads against thousands of keywords, some tied to specific issues.

However, McCain is losing the search ad battle in Nevada. According to ClickZ, Barack Obama appears to be alone for search terms like "Nevada caucuses," which turned up practical information and ads for his campaign.

Peter Greenberger, head of Google's elections and advocacy team, told MediaWeek that many voters make their choices at the last minute, leading to a spike in search activity.