The full range of social media will apparently be used in the campaigns of Romney and Obama, as well as in other races. This is new territory.
Now that Rick Santorum has suspended his campaign and the race is on
between President Obama and Mitt Romney, an unprecedented media war has
begun.
We've seen big media battles before. But in money, in
woman- and man-hours, and in technical and strategic sophistication,
this will be the biggest ever. Especially in Pennsylvania and other
swing states, you'll see television ads from both camps, and from the
semianonymous political action committees that have become the coin of
the 2012 realm.
But that's just the visible war.
Underneath and at the edges,
simmering around and through that loud clash of money and images, the
digital campaigns will lock horns.
They'll come to you in e-mails, text messages, classic mail . . . and in real live human beings knocking on your door.
In
a close election, as this promises to be, digital could be decisive.
Just ask Ann Romney. Better yet, tweet her: @AnnDRomney. (More on that
later.)
Or ask Andrew Rasiej, social-media campaign strategist,
founder of Personal Democracy Media, cofounder of TechPresident. He says
2008 was "the beginning of social media on the political scene. But as
of 2012, the digital campaign is on steroids."
