Though verbal miscues for Obama were rare, during a fund raiser here in San Francisco, he was that some people in small towns of Pennsylvania "get bitter...they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

According to Mayor Newsom, such comments can beat down a politician due to the relentless way in which information travels the internet. As politicians become more aware of that fact, and there's less of line between on-the-record and off-the-record interactions with constituents, it can constrain what comments they might make.

"Everything you say is exposed," he said. "It's an extraordinary thing. Hopefully, we can be forgiven when we make mistakes."

But Huffington and Trippi countered Newsom by noting that Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs have a way of vetting information more thoroughly than the mainstream media, which will help candidates when false information gets stated about them.

"The internet has changed Karl Rove politics," Huffington said, which drew applause from the audience. "All the fear mongering, with Bill Ayers and calling Obama a socialist terrorist all got proven wrong [on the Web]," she said.