socialmedian: Jose Antonio Vargas: OBAMA ONLINE -- Using Technology, It's the Electorate That Has Changed, Too

User-submitted headlines for this story

Clips

Jose Antonio Vargas: OBAMA ONLINE -- Using Technology, It's the Electorate That Has Changed, Too

Source: Huffington Post

Nov 04, 2009

Summary

Change, of course, carries many definitions, as Barack Obama won the White House a year ago today, expanding the electorate by drawing new voters, raising millions from small-dollar donations and, for the first time in presidential politics, placing modern technology (the Internet, text messaging, social networking) at the center of the campaign. Change, in this context, meant putting everyday people -- the voters -- at the heart of the operation. Change, in other words, meant us. We changed -- the way people participated in politics changed.

And that resulted, when we look back, in staggering numbers:

* Some 3 million individual donors made a total of 6.5 million donations online adding up to more than $500 million. The average donation was $80, and the average Obama donor gave more than once.

* The campaign had an e-mail list of 13 million addresses. In 2004, Sen. John Kerry had 3 million e-mail addresses as the Democratic nominee; Howard Dean, during the primaries, had 600,000.

* One million people signed up for the campaign's text messaging program. Obama ann

...Read the full article

Comments (0)

Add Your Comment