As the crucial Pennsylvania primary draws near, competition between Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is heating up in real life as well as Second Life's virtual world.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, SL's Obama and Clinton supporters have been griefing one another of late:

The trouble began in March 2007, when Obama supporters held a rally... [other avatars] raided the virtual Obama headquarters. They littered it with T-shirts, posters and signs sporting anti-Obama messages or expressing support for Sen. Clinton and Republican contender Rep. Ron Paul...

During a November rally at the unofficial virtual Clinton beachfront headquarters, supposed Obama supporters hid under a dock and then emerged with signs, shouting via connected headsets and shooting at people... it's unclear if the disruptors were actually from the Obama camp...

Last month, virtual gunmen disrupted a planned Obama march, shooting and pushing people around. That knocked some marchers offline... The Obama group responded by teleporting... to the CNN hub... to hold their rally. But soon images of a Clinton campaign poster and a clip of Sen. Obama next to a photo of Osama bin Laden were flying all over the screen...

Although the only notice we've taken of World of Warcraft in relation to the U.S. presidential election was an unoffical rally for Republican Ron Paul (left) in January, USA Today reports that WoW is a hotbed of presidential politics - especially on the Democratic side:

The primary race between Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is so competitive, it has even barged into the online universe of the World of Warcraft game. Millions of players are supposed to be fighting dragons, raiding enemies and performing magical quests — not discussing superdelegates.

USA Today quotes 36-year-old WoW devotee Sean Goldman:

Here we are, logging into a virtual world to escape the grip of the real world for a few hours, but this election has brought the real world closer to the virtual world...

Hillary and Obama have created quite the buzz with the race, and it's created a buzz everywhere. I'd say 99% of the people talking about this (in the game) are the types who would usually stay away from talking politics because it wasn't cool. But now it's definitely roused a lot of people in World of Warcraft.

Although Ron Paul's presidential hopes are rapidly fading, ConnieTalk reports that a group of "grassroots artists" have released an impressive, minute-long, video game-like commercial for the upstart Republican:
 

The spot--which looks like any scene from a high-quality, modern video game--utilizes portions of Ron Paul's past speeches, combined with high end computer animation and moving graphics to create scenes where a 3-D Ron Paul emerges from water, is surrounded by doves, is standing amongst money flying up into the air, and even appearing next to the founding fathers of the Constitution...

 

The project... took 3 months to create the 60-second feature, which Chris Rye's American Liberty Coalition PAC hopes to air in Pennsylvania leading up to PA's April 22nd primary.

 

Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul's rampant Internet popularity is about to take an amusing new shape.

WoW Insider reports that a World of Warcraft guild will march from the Alliance cities of Ironforge to Stormwind (GP: that's a helluva long walk!) on New Year's Day in support of Paul's candidacy. From the WoW Insider story:
 

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's internet regiment has come to World of Warcraft - a group of his supporters are planning to form a guild on Whisperwind and do a march from IF to Stormwind (which means they'll probably be Gnomes or Dwarves, which is too bad, because I liked the idea of "Trolls for Ron Paul") on New Year's Day at 8:30pm EST.

The Ironforge to Stormwind route was probably selected because those cities are close to starter locations. That gives Ron Paul supporters who may not have a character on the Whisperwind server the opportunity to quickly create one and jump right into the march without the need to spend time leveling up.

The question now becomes: will Horde players mount a raid in an attempt to disrupt the march?

GP: Actually, no. I just took a quick look and found that Whisperwind is not a PvP server.