Barack Obama’s final online message
p2pnet news view | P2P | Politics:- Today’s US presidential elections will be marked in the history of politics for a lot of reasons, not least of which will be Barack Obama’s recognition that the Net would be integral to his success, and his consequent use of it to energise online communities on his behalf.
But today he’s making use of another 21st digital century phenomenon: texting.
It, “may do for the Democratic presidential candidate what arm-twisting precinct captains did in years past,” says Bloomberg News.
“Barack Obama is reaching a generation that is trying to change the world in 160 characters or less,” it has David All, a political consultant who advises Republicans on Internet strategy, saying.
“The biggest concern for the Obama campaign is getting young people — who have registered in record numbers and shown unprecedented interest in surveys — to turn out,” says Bloomberg, continuing:
“Getting these 44 million eligible voters who represent one-quarter of the electorate to the polls today will be particularly important because there have been reports that this group hasn’t turned out for early voting at the same increased rate as other Obama supporters, such as blacks.”
Targeted are inner-city minority communities, “who are lower on the income scale with less predictability about where they live,” states Thomas Gensemer, managing partner of Blue State Digital, which is managing Obama’s online campaign.
It’s been preparing for today’s “text-messaging offensive” for more than a year. In August, it promised anyone who provided a phone number that they would get first notice of the vice-presidential pick.
The story doesn’t wonder how many people may find text-messaging offensive in another way — as political spam.
“The Republican National Committee also is using texting, though not on the same scale as the Obama campaign,” says Bloomberg News, quoting Cyrus Krohn, director of the RNC’s eCampaign, as saying:
“We are sending targeted text messages throughout our targeted states.”
Adds the story:
“Overall, the McCain campaign has failed to build as strong a presence on the Internet. Obama raised more than $600 million, much of it from online donations, compared with McCain’s $217 million. Obama has more than 2 million friends on the social- networking site Facebook, compared with 560,000 for McCain. The Democrat’s campaign videos have been viewed 92 million times, more than triple the number for McCain, 72.”
Bloomberg News – Obama Counts on Text Messages to Drive Turnout of Youth, Blacks , November 4, 2008
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