Campaigns Use Text Messages To Reach Youth

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.