Campaigns Use Text Messages To Reach Youth

Cell Phones Can Be The Cheapest Way To Hook Supporters And Keep Them Through Election Day

(CBS)  More than a billion cell phone text messages are sent every day in the U.S.

And now, they are the latest tool for political campaigns, reports correspondent Cali Carlin of CBS Mobile News.

"It is going to be an instantaneous communication between the campaign and the voter," says Robert Gibbs, communications director for Barack Obama's campaign. The campaign has a special unit devoted to high-tech communications with voters

"It is another way of communicating with people," Gibbs adds. "Especially if you can reach people that you would just not normally reach."

It's not just the Obama campaign that has caught on. In this campaign cycle, mobile phones are the cheapest way to hook supporters and keep them - right through Election Day.

In the past midterm elections, direct mail cost campaigns on average $67 a vote. Door-to-door precinct walking cost about $30. And cold calling costs about $20 per vote.

But text messaging can cost a campaign as little as $1.50 per vote. Pretty cost effective for people who want to get young people's attention no matter where they may be.

Political scientists from the University of Michigan and Princeton found that a text message reminder sent to registered voters the day of the 2006 midterm elections boosted turnout by nearly 5 percent over those who were not texted.

That's notable, considering that only about 25 percent of young people voted in that election.

"It's a shocking result," says Yale professor Donald Green, who has studied voter turnout for 20 years.

"It is as though the phone commands you to obey, and you go off and vote," Green says. "Text messaging seems to cut directly to a person, and also cuts to them when they are in motion."

That’s especially true when it comes to the mobile generation - those under 30, of all political persuasions.

"Anything that sort of gets them out to the polls, anything that could potentially get them out to the polls is great," says Michael Wood at New York University.

As many as a third of the estimated 20 million voters under 30 don't even have a land line. So the only way to reach them is by cell phone.

That means when it comes to mobilizing the youth vote, the old campaign tactics may have to go the way of the rotary phone.

[rowdytexan2]

Posted by leafntree at 10:26 PM : Dec 25, 2007

Ummm, can you repeat that?


(Mother ship? Could be, Element.)

[werchange]

YOU''RE A FROG IN A POT
My fellow Americans need to open their eyes to the fact that our Republic, along with The Constitution upon which it was founded, is being flushed-down the toilet by our nations'' bought and paid for politicians and media. While the Oligarchs warn and incite fear in the sheeple about the prospect of terrorism, they at the same time leave our borders wide open, and then conduct illegal wars overseas that do nothing but incite the terrorism which their Orwellian Laws like the Patriot Act and the John Warner Defense Authorization Act pretend to protect us from. Wake up America! It''s not about protecting you from terrorism, or Global Warming, or any of that other fear-mongering garbage the sold-out, mainstream media feeds you 24/7. It''s about feeding the bankers and the military industrial complex, and facilitating the global elite''s ability to ratchet-up their control over the American people, placing us into a total control grid where they can surveille, track and control everywhere we go and everything we do. It''s the groundwork for tyranny. It''s the New World Order plan of Bush, Clinton, Edwards, McCain, Giuliani, et.al., being executed quite beautifully. You''re a frog in a pot: In order to cook a frog, you don''t throw him into a pot of boiling water. If you do, he''ll resist and jump-out. What you do instead is, you turn the heat-up REAL SLOW, and by the time the water is boiling, he won''t be able to jump out anymore

[element51]

leafntree....I''m sorry but I have to ask, what does your post have to with the story topic? In fact, what is your post about, period. I have tried to make some sort of sense out of it but I have no earthly idea what you are talking about. The best I can figgure out it is some sort of cryptic message to the mother ship.

[alkrauza]

WOW... IMAGINE HOW TEXT MESSAGE ADVERTISING WILL BENEFIT EVERY LOCAL AND MAJOR BUSINESS. BEING ABLE TO REACH THEIR CUSTOMERS IN REAL TIME. LOOK AT WHAT ADCALLS IS DOING... www.adcalls.com/overview.html ... TALK ABOUT BEING AT THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME!!

[cyberus-2009]

So .. (whatever)Prophet, so desperate are you to promote via spam that you now have to spam nonsense like this??
If Ron Paul is all you spammers claim he is, you wouldn''t need to spam, that fact that you are sort of make a person wonder if he''s as authentic as those rolex watches we spam email about all the time.