The handful of people who have gathered on the patio of a Pasadena coffeehouse are either the answer, or the big question mark, in the 2008 presidential election.

They have come at the behest of Mike Barako, a Los Angeles special-ed teacher who has been following Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. Last month, Barako launched a Web site through Obama's online campaign to build a local committee of active supporters. More than two dozen people promised to come out for this night's organizational meeting.

But only eight people have shown up, pointing out one of the challenges of the campaigns' rush to the Internet. Building an online database of supporters and the curious is one thing. Spurring them to action is another.

"That's going to be the test ... whether you can capture the lightning in the bottle and turn that into people who will go door to door for you," said Michael Turk, who ran the Internet operation for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. "How are you going to turn those people into true supporters and do the kind of things that win campaigns?"

It's still early in the campaign cycle, but nearly all the major 2008 presidential candidates -- both announced and presumed -- are wrestling with the technology that has made such successes of MySpace, Facebook, MeetUp and other social networking sites.

Yet in their rush to the Web world, the campaigns have stumbled as much as they've succeeded. Two bloggers with embarrassing baggage quit former Sen. John Edwards' campaign under pressure over earlier comments bashing Catholics. And some say McCainSpace, a social networking site, emphasizes fundraising over network building.

Of the major declared and anticipated candidates, those who have moved most aggressively to the Internet are Obama; Edwards; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.; Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.; and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican.

Their sites let supporters create own campaign-linked pages, find one another through regional search mechanisms, download posters and signup sheets, raise money and, in the case of Obama, print voter registration forms.

According to staff lists maintained by George Washington University's Democracy in Action, many of the campaigns have turned to 2004 veterans to oversee their Web projects: Former Howard Dean staffers Matthew Gross and Joe Rospars work for Edwards and Obama, respectively; John F. Kerry adviser Peter Daou is with Clinton; former Bush-Cheney Webmaster and Republican blogger Patrick Ruffini works for former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani; and Mindy Finn, a Bush-Cheney 2004 veteran and former deputy campaign director of the Republican National Committee, works for Romney.

Web use also reflects differing views on campaigning, Turk said.

Democrats have been more nimble because Democrats tend to be more receptive to hearing from the base on policy matters and strategy, whereas Republican candidates tend to adopt a more corporate, top-down structure, Turk said.

"The Republican Party has always been the message-driven party," Turk said, adding that the GOP was particularly effective with direct mail, television and talk radio formats, "which are traditional sender-receiver models."

"The Internet just blows that out, and the presidential candidates haven't adapted to it yet."