Next week's primaries transition the political process in South Carolina towards a November general elections likely to be the last of its kind in America.

Fifty years ago the election topped by the contest between Kennedy and Nixon proved television had become the dominate form of political communication. A process once dominated by mass meetings and later radio had changed again.

In Charleston (the Town of Mount Pleasant was very small at the time) politics in the early part of the 20th. century was built around block level community organization and the occasional large event. Competing factions would have a captain living on every block of the city, who knew their neighbors and was in a position to influence their vote by persuasion, political favors or recrimination. Requests went up the system from block captains, to regional coordinators and finally to the leadership.

Favors went back down.

Shortly before the election, campaigns would hold mass meetings on Marion Square to hear speeches and rally their supporters. Turning out support from your block was the measure of effectiveness of a block captain.

Radio cut deeply into such politics. Television ended it. The largest political gatherings held here now involve a far lower proportion of the population than those held a century ago.

Today we're on the middle of another change. Each side can reach its base efficiently through the internet. Video and interactive media can be delivered with pinpoint accuracy. Money can be raised through thousands of small donations by campaigns and PACs.

However it's clear the broadcast media's grip on younger voters is evaporating. Cable has fragmented the market. Television viewership is only a fraction of what it was. Getting lots of advertising on television is still the goal of most political campaigns; however it's becoming like the huge horse stables many armies still maintained at the start of WWI.

Over the next week a group of volunteers will be working in my precinct to knock on doors and hand out bags of literature provided by the campaigns. We'll also be making phone calls. A few weeks ago, I attended the Gallivant's Ferry stump meetings where for over 100 years Democratic candidates gather to drum up support. Politics is still, and ought to be, about talking to people when you can reach the magic moment when two people are actually talking.

However people can be hard to reach in the 20th century. The residential landline telephone is fading quickly. Cell phone numbers can be tough to track down. It can be tough to find people at home when you're going door to door. As politics has become more polarized, community organizations try to keep their distance. Meeting space can be hard to find.

By 2012 we may be dealing with an information stream completely under the control of the consumer. How much political advertising is going to survive being run through a DVR or download?

It will be easier to find and reach people who want to be involved. It is likely to be much harder to reach most citizens. As involvement declines, so does sophistication.

We struggle with a declining functional knowledge of ordinary civics.

Money will always be important, but human attention is the object of politics in a democracy.

In a world of diluted focus and powerful distractions, we'll have to adapt our capacity to decide and govern if it is to continue to reach enough people to make democracy functional.

(William Hamilton (www.wjhamilton.com) is an attorney who lives in I'OnVillage. You can read and comment on this and other opinions at www.moultrienews.com.)