The 2008 Obama campaign and what it means for the future

   In 2008, Clinton won the primaries in Texas but Obama overwhelmed the caucuses and won the state. The secret? A company named Blue State Technologies that will change the face of campaigning. The Kerry Dean campaign in 2004 saw an unprecedented rise in online donations; though they eventually lost sine not enough people had a connection to the internet at the time. The people who ran the website went on to form Blue State Technologies. Four years later, when everyone is much more connected to the internet, the results were astounding. They gave people the tools to push the Obama campaign- people could download fliers, donate money, get telephone numbers of people who hadn't voted yet, and they spread everything in a streamlined way on social media. Clinton on the other hand, tried to run her campaign top down with volunteers and got much worse results. Another aspect was instead of spending emails that went to spam most of the time, people got word out to thousands in 160 characters or less over text. Through arming their supporters with the tools to spread word Blue State Technologies changed campaigning.
    In this most recent election, social media changed the race entirely. Instead of people consuming information from news stations or a few newspapers per town everyone saw clips from every night show or music video and reposted. Everyone is now getting out and commenting on clips and videos and being heard. Furthermore, Trump preempted most of the media by simply posting on twitter where the news can't tell you what to think about what he said. Then he masses all responded back and validated each other by liking and sharing each others opinions. Everyone has a voice now and success is measured in the thousands of likes. Campaigns can't structure what people hear and say anymore. The power has been given back to the people god knows what we will do with it.

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