Interesting article relating to the use of communication and digital technology used to support the race for the presidential election written by Andrew Mernin, The Journal and Herb Kim, Codeworks, the North East’s Centre for Digital Excellence.
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THE real story of the 2008 US presidential election will not be about the first African American elected to the Presidency nor about the first female elected vice president.
The lasting legacy of this election will be about the rise of Silicon Valley in influencing and financing presidential campaigns and potentially all campaigns from here on in.
Over the summer, Joshua Green documented in the pages of The Atlantic about Barack’s secret weapon in his rise from obscurity to toppling the world’s most popular and powerful political couple.
Since the beginning of his campaign, Barack Obama has raised nearly $500m which is a staggering amount of money. He has raised more money from more people than anyone else in history by far.
The amazing thing about this feat is that he has done it almost effortlessly. In the past, an aspiring candidate’s diary would be dominated with countless appearances at fundraising events.
While Obama has done his share, he has been able to spend far more time straight campaigning.
What Obama’s campaign did is mobilise Silicon Valley. Hillary Clinton chose to ignore the Bay Area early on and it was possibly her single biggest mistake. Silicon Valley has a lot of money but much more importantly, Silicon Valley also knows how to exploit technology.
Read the full article here on www.nebusiness.co.uk.
