People have already been warned before that mixing politics and MMO video games is not a good idea, but it seems that it's not going away, especially now that real-life elections are just around the corner. Virtual event and promotions company Forefront Media will be hosting a virtual campaign in Second Life for the U.S. presidentia candidate, Senator Barack Obama.

Here's how it goes: In the real-world, the senator will address and interact with a select small group in a living room somewhere in Iowa. Aside from being webcast for community gatherings around the states, the discussion will also have an SL version. The said living room will be simulated by Forefront on March 31 at 1:00 p.m. on their island, SoHo.

There will be an authorized avatar that will represent Barack Obama, and will try to replicate the movements of the senator. Needless to say, this avatar will not be controlled by Obama himself, but the speech will of course be him, and can be heard by SL residents through an audio stream piped into the simulation.

Politician John Edwards, as reported on many occasions before, has also brought his campaign into the virtual world. We don't know if Obama is even aware of what happened to Edwards' headquarters which, for the benefit of those who do not know, was bombarded with Mario and Bill Crosby pictures, not to mention various obscenities, thrown by virtual attackers.

Well, looks like one of our commenters was spot on when he said that "'Republicans' didn't do it." 10 Zen Monkeys reports that the identity of the virtual attackers who spammed John Edwards' Second Life campaign office with posters has been confirmed, and they're more virtual prankster than republican pundit.

It seems the people who pulled off the attack are members of a Second Life invasion group known as the Patriotic Nigras. The members of the group spend time making attacks on various institutions within Second Life for no particular reason other than fun, making earlier claims that it was politically motivated currently moot.

While we don't have a video of what happened at the Edwards campaign office, 10 Zen Monkeys did post a video featuring the bombardment of a house with pictures of Mario and Bill Crosby (Jell-Owned, no less). Denizens of Second Life may probably want to lock their virtual doors, though against these fellows a virtual door isn't so much a deterrent as an invitation to try.

We reported earlier this month that politician John Edwards set up an in-game headquarters in Second Life. There's probably nothing wrong with that as some French political parties did the same earlier on. However, things got a little out of hand when some residents vandalized the said HQ.

Edwards, himself, blogged about the matter and according to him, these are group of Republican SL users with some carrying "Bush 08" tags. Furthermore, the group covered the office with Marxist as well as Leninist posters and slogans. Edwards added that there was also feces spewing obscenity and a picture of him in black face.

The group was out of control, Edwards mentioned, as they harassed visitors and threw out obscenity-laden abuse of Democrats in general. The former North Carolina senator commented,

I witnessed this event, taking names and photos, including the owners of the pictures. I also kept and saved a copy of the chat log. I have filed an abuse report with Linden Labs, and am awaiting their investigation.

The said "attack" occurred shortly before midnight (CST) last Monday, February 26.

Steve O'Hear reports in his ZDNet Blog that although it may not be official - yet - John Edwards is the first presidential candidate to set-up "shop" in Linden Labs' virtual world, Second Life.

Thank to a grass-roots effort headed and managed by Jerimee Richir, whose avatar is called Jose Rote, there is already an in-world campaign for Edwards. Now, we say grass-roots because although this is partially sponsored by Edwards' virtual headquarters, most of it (the campaign) is reportedly volunteer in nature.

When asked by O'Hear about his relationship with the official Edwards campaign, Rote had this to say:

... think of this as a scouting mission... it is unofficial in that the campaign is not spending money, and I am not paid, however the campaign is aware that we are organizing in Second Life, and cooperating as much as they can. I keep them updated on what I have learned, and they let me know things that will be helpful.

Given the relatively small user-base of SL compared to other online communities, Rote had this to say when questioned about the effectiveness of campaigning for Edwards in Second Life:

While SL users do not have the same numbers as, say, MySpace, they have communication skills, and a desire to communicate, that, I humbly say, exceeds that of MySpace users. For example, and this is just a guess, but I bet that half of Second Life users regularly contribute to multiple blogs. So it is a smaller community, but I would argue it is a more influential community.

So SL campaigns generate more buzz, not because, "the media is stupid" but because Second Life users do more talking.

Will virtual world support eventually translate into real-world votes? That is still uncertain, but given the amount of buzz that this (relatively) small community of avatars, land-barons, and virtual-world business-folk is generating, we think it's safe to say that campaigning in SL will at the very least, help further Edward's campaign efforts.