The Hill newspaper is reporting that Hillary Clinton's campaign will be using text messages to reach out to potential supporters. While the adoption of text messaging will not present as dramatic a change to the nature of campaigns as the rise of the Internet did a few years ago, change is certainly afoot.
“By harnessing the power of text messaging, we can engage voters in the political process using the latest technology and provide personalized, local campaign updates to our supporters nationwide,” Clinton said. “This is an exciting step forward that I hope will continue our conversation with voters in a new format.”
Her campaign announced Monday that the new technology takes Clinton’s commitment to reaching out to voters “to a whole new level.” The campaign noted that there are 236 million cell phone users in the U.S. and that 18.7 billion text messages were sent in December 2006.
Those who sign up for the service will receive updates on Clinton’s campaign, including pictures.
The USA Today OnPolitics Blog has some other details:
According to an e-mail from campaign spokesman Phil Singer, those who text the word "JOIN" to 77007 can expect:
• "Regular updates from Hillary while she is on the road (messages, photos, etc)."
• "Local updates about campaign events in their area."
• To be asked "for their input."
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