BOTTOM LINE: When you have one of the most extensive lists of supporters ever compiled you use it. The Barack Obama campaign will now be able to speak directly to supporters without needing the news media to carry water for his programs. 11-10-2008
Under Obama, Web Would Be the Way Unprecedented Online Outreach Expected By Shailagh Murray and Matthew Mosk Washington Post Staff Writers Armed with millions of e-mail addresses and a political operation that harnessed the Internet like no campaign before it, Barack Obama will enter the White House with the opportunity to create the first truly "wired" presidency. Obama aides and allies are preparing a major expansion of the White House communications operation, enabling them to reach out directly to the supporters they have collected over 21 months without having to go through the mainstream media. Just as John F. Kennedy mastered television as a medium for taking his message to the public, Obama is poised to transform the art of political communication once again, said Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist who first helped integrate the Internet into campaigning four years ago. "He's going to be the first president to be connected in this way, directly, with millions of Americans," Trippi said. The nucleus of that effort is an e-mail database of more than 10 million supporters. The list is considered so valuable that the Obama camp briefly offered it as collateral during a cash-flow crunch late in the campaign, though it wound up never needing the loan, senior aides said. At least 3.1 million people on the list donated money to Obama. Millions more made up the volunteer corps that organized his enormous rallies, registered millions of voters and held countless gatherings to plug the senator to friends and neighbors. On Election Day, they served as the backbone of Obama's get-out-the-vote operation, reaching voters by phone and at the front door, serving coffee at polling stations and babysitting so parents could stand in line at voting precincts. After Obama declared victory, his campaign sent a text message announcing that his supporters hadn't heard the last from the president-elect. Obama conveyed a similar message to his staff in a campaignwide conference call Wednesday, signaling that his election was the beginning, and not the culmination, of a political movement. Link to rest of article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/10/AR2008111000013.html?hpid=topnews
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