David Cameron and the Tories are winning the “web war” against Gordon Brown and Labour, according to the man who masterminded Barack Obama’s successful online strategy during his presidential election run.

Thomas Gensemer said the Tories had succesfully used the internet to spread their message, citing the launch of WebCameron, which features videos of the Tory leader’s domestic life.

The managing partner of Blue State Digital, which built Mr Obama’s internet operation, said that Labour’s bureaucratic machine meant it was unable to respond quickly to events and that its existing internet operations lacked sophistication.

“In its day WebCameron was cute,” Mr Gensemer told The Times. “It came across as authentic. That’s a good use of the online media to personalise your candidate.

“They [the Conservatives] have done a better job of talking to more than just bloggers and taking advantage of quick moments. They kicked Gordon when he’s down, then they move quickly and get out something creative.”

He said he recently saw a billboard poster for the omnipresent Conservative baby - which features the tagline “Dad’s eyes, mum’s nose, Gordon Brown’s debt” - then quickly saw the image was on the Conservative website as well. “That’s some integrated campaigning going on," he said.

Mr Gensemer, who has previously worked on Labour campaigns, said he had little hope that the Prime Minister could turn Labour’s fortunes around, adding that he could “help with the necessary rebuild of the network of the Labour Party”.

He also criticised both Labour and the Tories for being prone to using web “gimmicks” rather than engaging with people, adding that Labour had not yet mastered how best to use the medium.

“Three days ago I got [an e-mail] from Harriet Harman. Yesterday I got something from Jacqui Smith. Neither of them asked me to do anything. Neither of them even contained a link,” he said.

Mr Gensemer previously advised Ken Livingstone’s re-election effort for the London Mayoralty that ultimately failed, but which finished with a higher proportion of the vote than Labour had in national opinion polls. He also worked on Jon Cruddas’s upstart campaign for the deputy leadership of the party, where the backbencher beat several Cabinet members to win third place in the vote.

Both Labour and the Conservatives watched as the Obama Campaign led by Blue State Digital, co-founded by Mr Gensemer, built an army of supporters over the internet, who helped to push their candidate to an historic victory.

Even Karl Rove, the Republican political adviser who masterminded George W. Bush’s two election wins is an admirer, saying that the company does “good things for the wrong people”.

Through constant and direct communication over e-mail and social networking sites such as Facebook, over three million Obama supporters gave a staggering $500 million in online donations. This was often done by simply pressing a button on the official website.

About three million of Mr Obama’s supporters made calls to family, friends and perfect strangers to evangelise on behalf of his campaign, and on election day they also helped to get voters out to the polling booth. People spent 14 million hours watching Obama campaign-related videos on YouTube, or 50 million views overall.

Mr Gensemer said that simply dabbling in using new technology was not the route to success and that rather than merely blogging and creating Facebook groups, parties had to find a way of getting ordinary people interested in what they have to say, and eventually working for them.

“Stop trying so hard,” Mr Gensemer said of British politicians’ keenness to sign up to likes of the the microblogging service Twitter, something less likely to come easily to lifetime politicians more used to writing formal letters to constituents than using the latest text-speak in a mobile phone message.

“I’m not trying to be confrontational to our friends in the Labour Party, but the political capital you spend trying to get 10 MPs to Twitter... is probably not capital worth spending.

“It would probably be better to go into the constituency with a video and encourage them to do things that are more natural to them.”

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