Justin Oberman, a dear friend and a very talented mobilist, is now in charge of the mobile campaign of Green Independent candidate for Governor Pat LaMarchen. From a mobilist perspective, it is very interesting to see how politicians use mobile advertising (and mobile technology) for their political campaigns. Here in Israel, we haven't seen this yet.
Justin says that Pat LaMarche "has already gained a reputation for technological innovation in Maine for her Online Town Hall and a Website that the Library Of Congress has already designated as a historic & site worth preserving in the federal archives" so going on a mobile campaign suites her reputation and public image. Her mobile campaign was officially launches yesterday. One part of her mobile campaign aims to provide citizens the ability to influence the topics that she will address in her public appearances. Justin writes that "students and citizens of Maine will be ask to text the word Pat and a topic (example: Pat Health Care) to the short code 30644. Later today Pat will be speaking at the University of Maine in Orono" where she will address the top three topics that people sent her via SMS. Also, Pat will receive questions via SMS in upcoming radio interviews throughout the week.
There's more: they aim to engage the people to Pat's campaign through SMS. People that sent a question to Pat through SMS will get an SMS in reply "asking them to opt in to what the campaign is calling "Pats Immediate Response Team" the purpose of which is to send out the latest insider news, call to actions, campaign ringtones and tips on how you can help Pat win. Opting into the text message also signs you up to receive important Get Out To The Vote reminders on the day of the election (of which will include information on where to go to vote). The text will also ask users to send a text message to at least 5 people reminding them to go vote".
As for the first part of the mobile campaign, where people get to raise their burning issues and ask their candidate to respond, I'm pretty sure it will be very successful. Who doesn't want to take the opportunity to influence? What would be very interesting to follow is the ability to engage people to take public action through a plain SMS. We know from our daily lives how hard it is to go out and take action. Would a plain SMS could manage to persuade us to do so??? This one is still an open question... -You're very welcome to express your opinions.
Great work Justin!
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