If you haven’t seen it already, check out the excrutiatingly US presidential Kevin 07 website launched today. Once your eyes adjust, what you’ll see is a fairly comprehensive marketing effort that accentuates the generation gap between the Prime Minister and the aspirant. There’s links to Myspace and Facebook as well as a very healthy dose of video and other Web 2.0 baubles.

There’s no doubt the website will have an impact in marketing and political terms but I’m primarily interested in the potential policy impacts. The health section of the site only has broad objectives at present, one of which is an increased focus on prevention services. What’ll be interesting is whether the input from the public contributed from the site has any bearing on the finer details of policy when its released. The history of Labor politics and factions suggests not.

It’s hard not to see the website as a ‘hey, look at me, I’m web savvy’ effort rather than a true consultative, policy-driven enterprise. Here’s hoping I’m wrong.