"Somebody's probably going to have a macaca moment," Joe Trippi just told attendees here at the Future of Political Communications forum at GW.

"Maybe even one of the frontrunners will be caught in an unguarded moment" by someone with a cell phone camera, he added.

Trippi, who rose in 2003 by helping Howard Dean's record-breaking Internet operation, now advises former Sen. John Edwards (D).

At the same time, he said, when we look back one day at the 2008 presidential race, "there will be a presidential candidate" whose momentum can be traced back to some positive incident or breakthrough captured on video and spread virally on the Web.

"Authenticity rules," Trippi said. "We are entering an amazing period where democracy is being returned to the people."

-- Christina Bellantoni, national political reporter, The Washington Times