The Wichita Eagle just posted about the email Sen. Sam Brownback’s campaign sent out about his new campaign iPhone application.
I applaud any candidate who utilizes new technologies to reach out to people. So often Kansas candidates are too hooked into the Leave It To Beaver trip back to the 50’s when it comes to new media, and Brownie’s certainly scaling the Brownback Mountain on this one.
According to Brownie’s email:
Key features of SamForGov include:
- Sign supporters up for the campaign mailing list and collect their name, email, ZIP, mobile number and mobile opt-in for text messaging.
- Enlist volunteers along with their key skills and interests.
- Sharing capability that uses the supporter’s Facebook, Twitter, Email and text messages to spread campaign info and allows the campaign to dynamically pre-configure the message that is posted.
- Campaign contributions processed by PayPal and Google Checkout.
- Dynamic content views that can be changed on demand by the campaign, providing Sam’s bio, his positions on issues, campaign updates, and a list of campaign events.
- “Banners” that link to dynamic content views to highlight events, celebrate key volunteers, and provide rapid response to fast-breaking news.
- The campaign can alert supporters that they should check the app for updates – even when the app isn’t open on the iPhone.
- A customized look-and-feel that matches the campaign’s brand identity and makes supporters feel instantly at home.
Here’s the thing, however… As I’m going through the features I can’t help but notice it looks similar to what some of the early primary candidates did during the presidential campaigns. I don’t recall if he had an app for the Presidential campaign but if he did it looks a lot like something that could have been repurposed for this race too. Why do I say that? Well, because the app doesn’t really do anything. And back in the day of the early primaries (2007 was so long ago) the iPhone wasn’t new enough that we had perfected iPhone application building for political campaigns just yet.
In the General Election the Obama app went through your contacts and you could call your people and ask them for their vote for Obama. You could see issues in real time while on the phone with people so you could answer questions. And, perhaps its best feature, it prioritized them by swing state.
Today, now that we’ve been using this technology for like… two whole years now, we can really spiff up apps for REAL campaign organizing. I have some friends that designed Activism2Go that among other things, enables volunteers to connect with the voter file and call supporters with a script, click responses, enter in new information, etc.. This is a lot like the palm pilots you use as a canvasser etc… Now THAT is a real app that actually can be meaningful to a campaigns.
Instead this Brownback Application is like a vanity app. Look… Brownbacks on my phone! I can… look at his website on my iPhone through Safari but now I can really look at his website… through HIS EYES! Kinda lame… As one friend says “When you put it on your phone, do you start having an inflated sense of self and ambition while not actually contributing anything to state or national politics?” Good question….
Loading ...