Am I on Barack’s Buddy List?

First of all, let me get this out of the way right up front. Barack and I aren’t really BFF. Sure, he agreed to let me know about his choice for vice president before he told the media. Yeah, that was a nice gesture. Instead of first blabbing to television or faxing newspapers, he would go straight to me. Via text message! In fact, texting to me shows he really does understand me. I am using text messaging a lot more these days. Hey, who isn’t? It’s easier in meetings than a phone call. While my 17-year-old routinely pushes my call to voicemail, he actually answers my text message (I guess when his friends see him thumbing away they can assume that he is texting to a hot girl instead of an old dad). And now I am texting for other things besides communication. If I want the weather, I text my zip code to 4cast. If I need the answer to a question quickly, I text it to chacha (242242) – the answer comes back to me in less than 5 minutes. Each year in the US, we send over 576 billion text messages (yeah, I got that number from chacha in 4.75 minutes). Texting is quickly becoming a standard part of our lives and our phone bills. Choosing to text seems to show that Barack gets me. Has he realized that the common (wo)man has big thumbs and a service plan with a bucketload of messages? Barack seems to know his audience, right? Maybe.

On Saturday, I finally get the message – at 3:23A! Did Barack think I would still be up? If that call had woken me up, I would have been filling in my ballot from bed! By the time I read the message (at 8A the next morning), I had already heard about Biden on NPR. So maybe I wasn’t so special after all?

Fighting back the disappointment, I read in the text that Barack has a mobile site. A true progressive! When I click through I see that Barack has his own set of ringtones. I am already thinking about getting down to his platform on health care and national security address everytime I get a call from my Republican friends. I’ve got to have it. But then I learn the unpleasant truth behind the glitz.

Although Barack is flexing some serious geek muscle here with new media methods for connecting with the electorate, some of his stump messages aren’t connecting online. I mean how can I buy his promise of inclusiveness when his ringtones won’t play on my phone? Talk about the digital divide! And I have been waiting for a friend request since the primaries.

The next few months should be interesting. As they reach out to the voters, we will quickly learn who is the connected candidate and who is the digital dabbler.