Anywhere but Second Life the sight of a Japanese Zero zipping around the skies on Memorial Day weekend might just start a riot. Not here though. In this surreal world a vintage fighter plane from the wrong side of the tracks isn’t likely to raise an eyebrow.

I had just taken possession of my new aircraft and was jetting around Scaroth on a test flight. The plane is light, surprisingly agile, and a just a little too responsive. One moment I’m climbing into the sky with nothing but clouds in sight, the next moment I’m zooming straight for the ocean.

Funny thing about those Zeros — once they go into a nosedive there’s no pulling back. It’s like they were engineered to crash or something.

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It’s no secret that social media will have a huge impact on the 2008 US presidential race. The leading candidates are already using every social networking tool at their disposal to reach as many voters as possible. You can be Hillary Clinton’s friend on MySpace, follow John Edwards personal goals on 43Things, and have Barack Obama’s tweets delivered directly to your mobile phone.

Collectively the candidates are leaving almost no new media stone unturned. But until last week none of the US presidential campaigns had an authorized presence in a virtual world. That all changed last Friday when Mike Gravel’s 2008 presidential campaign unveiled its headquarters in Second Life.

It should come as no surprise that Gravel would be the first candidate to authorize his presence in a virtual world. Following a spirited performance in the Democratic debates, and a whirlwind media tour afterward, Gravel is shaping up to be a the ultimate maverick candidate. By comparison former maverick John McCain looks like an absolute impostor.

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I was flying 600 meters above a region called Janni when my submarine suddenly burst into flames. I’d taken to the sky because the area around my previously remote water compound has been invaded by an army of Brazilians and a small band of nudist Wiccans. Somehow they’ve managed to completely block all water routes. Fortunately my submarine flies. Or it used to anyway.

By now you know that Second Life is a place where anything can happen. What you may not know is that it’s also a place where nothing ever really works the way it’s supposed to. Ask any long-time resident and they’ll tell you that Second Life is broken. For the last couple of weeks group chat — the primary tool that political campaigns use to organize in-world — has been busted. While Second Life clearly has tremendous potential for political mobilization, right now it’s looking like a fragile toy.

This is all just a long way of saying that there hasn’t been much substantial activity among the various presidential campaigns in Second Life since my last post. In the past couple of weeks Mike Gravel supporters created a new group and Ron Paul supporters opened a new headquarters — the later is significant because Paul is the first Republican candidate to have a presence in Second Life, the former is significant because Gravel claims to have been hiding under a rock for the last ten years.

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My first Medialoper assignment and I’ve already missed a deadline. Lopy, the Editor, e-mailed me last night to remind me that my story should be filed no later 5 a.m. this morning. By 8 a.m. my voice mail was full and I was ignoring Lopy’s frantic IMs. The general election isn’t until November 2008 — over 18 months away. Why the hell do I have a 5 a.m. deadline in April of 2007?

For the record, Linden Lab did a major upgrade yesterday and the grid was down much longer than expected. On top of that I’m still setting up my new compound in one of the most remote regions in all of Second Life. My hut is located on the Eastern edge of the universe (literally) and is surrounded by water as far as the eye can see (at least until a casino or strip club moves in next door). It’s the perfect environment for me to focus on covering a political campaign as strange as the one the 2008 presidential race is shaping up to be. These ludicrous 5 a.m. deadlines are no help at all.

By now you’ve probably heard that all of the leading Democratic presidential candidates have setup headquarters in Second Life. So far the media coverage of these campaigns has been muddled, skeptical, and occasionally mocking. For reporters who can’t tell the difference between a virtual world and a video game, there’s no clear reason for the campaigns to be here. Those same reporters are overlooking the fact that presidential campaigns are already a game, and moving that game into a virtual world full of sex-crazed furries and flying penises is simply a logical progression in the already weird history of American politics.

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