e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Obama, Clinton Used Instant Messaging as a Political Tool

June 23rd, 2008

Quick insight from Ana Marie Cox on a media panel at Personal Democracy Forum — she brought up instant messaging as a political tool, noting that the Clinton and Obama campaigns spent a lot of time this primary season communicating with reporters (and no doubt bloggers) via IM. Endless flurries of of behind-the-scenes emails flew around this season, as campaigns frantically spun the discussion, and IM was clearly being used in the same way. Of course, since it’s behind the scenes, we can’t see it and its ultimate influence is nearly invisible. In online politics, what you can see isn’t necessarily what matters. Update: Adam Conner caught the tidbit that Howard Wolfson (Clinton) and David Axelrod (Obama) were IM’ing back and forth during the primary season. The next Carville/Matalin?

– cpd