Obama Taps New Online Tool to Engage Campaign Supporters
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ABC News’ Devin Dwyer (@devindwyer) reports:
There’s no shortage of ways to connect with President Obama these days. He’s on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. His public events are live-streamed on the White House website. He gives media interviews, holds press conferences and televised town hall meetings. Soon Obama plans to launch a bus tour through the Midwest.
But the president and his re-election campaign proved Wednesday night that they are still interested in pushing their outreach to the technological edge, for the first time publicly showcasing a new video teleconferencing tool that exclusively connects Obama and his aides with thousands of supporters all across the country.
Seated before a computer camera backstage at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Obama spoke to grassroots volunteers gathered at more than 1,160 locations around the country using a custom “Skype-like” software program developed by Adobe Systems Inc. for his campaign.
“I’m beaming in from Chicago,” Obama said with a grin and a wave as he came on screen.
Invited users could access a password-protected interface that featured streaming video of the president, a live chat room, and twitter feed of messages tagged for the event by participants. Aides said Obama could also see the chat and twitter feeds, as well as a selection of participants’ faces who were also online and seated before their computer cameras.
“He can’t see everybody, but he can see dozens of faces in a Brady Bunch-style checker box,” the Obama campaign’s Virginia state director Brandyn Keating told a crowd of 40 volunteers huddled around a TV in a west Alexandria, Va., living room.
While Obama spoke, the Alexandria crowd appeared captivated by informality and intimacy of having the president directly – and exclusively – speaking in their neighborhood home. The campaign did not make video of the remarks or exchange otherwise publicly available.
Wide-eyed viewers had occasional chuckles and applause while Obama rattled off his administration’s accomplishments and offered tips for being an effective campaign volunteer. The president then opened up the session for questions, and the video interface split in two, juxtaposing Obama in Chicago with three sets of questioning supporters in North Carolina, Ohio and Michigan.
“I have difficulty answering some of the detailed questions on taxes and the wars,” one organizer from Greensboro, North Carolina, asked Obama.
“When you go out and talk to people, you’ve got to listen as much as you talk,” he replied. “Part of what people want to know is that they’re being heard.”
Obama campaign aides say the new software tool, which the president tried out for the first time Wednesday, also helps ensure their base of loyal volunteers are heard.
National field director Jeremy Bird and battleground state director Mitch Stewart have been using the platform to hold several national, online training sessions for organizers and gather their feedback through interactive, real-time polls.
“This is a relatively new technology and there are some bumps we’re working through, but it lets us interact with you and you interact with others,” Stewart told participants in one of the online training meetings last month.
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Is this what the Obama administration has been focusing lika a laser on? How about they figure a way out of ‘Great Depression II’ first?
Posted by: Larry | August 4, 2011, 3:01 pm 3:01 pm
Hey, it’s his birthday. Give the guy a break.
Posted by: ConservativeWoman | August 4, 2011, 3:47 pm 3:47 pm
Happy Birthday Mr. President
Posted by: pointless | August 4, 2011, 3:53 pm 3:53 pm
Dow falls 500 points.
Posted by: ceeLeelee | August 4, 2011, 3:53 pm 3:53 pm
Now we see what he has been focusing on. NOT JOBS. His re-election.
Posted by: wheresmymoney | August 4, 2011, 4:30 pm 4:30 pm
What the H is he gonna campaign on? The worst president ever!
Posted by: Rafe | August 4, 2011, 4:55 pm 4:55 pm
Here’s my only advice to President Obama about this:
It is virtually impossible to look good on a web cam. It is more unflattering than airplane bathroom lighting.
Have someone rig you up another camera, or get someone to light you before you go on line.
Posted by: MayBee | August 4, 2011, 4:59 pm 4:59 pm
Man he has no time now with all his tweeting, face booking, emailing, campaigning and fundraising. Thanks Obama for the 500 drop in the stock market.
Posted by: Freedom | August 4, 2011, 5:18 pm 5:18 pm
ABC News: “Obama Taps New Online Tool to Engage Campaign Supporters”
. . . since he only has time for the high rollers, like those waiting for him to finish his video conference with the little people.
ABC News: “. . . using a custom “Skype-like” software program developed by Adobe Systems Inc. for his campaign.”
If I was a supporter, I wouldn’t be happy knowing Obama wasted my money reinventing the wheel. Technology really isn’t Obama’s thing. On the other hand, he’s an absolute expert at wasting other people’s money. What a waste all around. Yawn.
Posted by: Anonymous | August 4, 2011, 5:27 pm 5:27 pm
Bored todeath of Obama contacts. Secondly he’s drivien the economy over a cliff and the worldknows he’s incompetent.
Posted by: Kala | August 4, 2011, 5:36 pm 5:36 pm
All Hail Our President!
Posted by: Jim | August 4, 2011, 6:25 pm 6:25 pm
He’e the Jello President. I wish soembody in the Dem Party would run against him. How can anybody still believe this phony.
Posted by: Susan | August 4, 2011, 6:56 pm 6:56 pm
It is virtually impossible to look good on a web cam. It is more unflattering than airplane bathroom lighting.
Have someone rig you up another camera, or get someone to light you before you go on line.
Posted by: MayBee | Aug 4, 2011 4:59:21 PM
I’m sure his teleprompters will give him that fresh glow…
Posted by: wheresmymoney | August 4, 2011, 6:58 pm 6:58 pm
How about tapping a new tool to extract our own oil to create jobs and get us off the dependence on Saudi Arabia?
But, alas, here we have a president who the only job he’s interesting in saving is his own.
Posted by: EPU | August 4, 2011, 9:47 pm 9:47 pm
Posted by: EPU | Aug 4, 2011 9:47:33 PM
I liked it better when the Bush oil family was walking around holding the Saudi’s hands and kissing their rosy dictatorship cheeks.
Posted by: Jennifer | August 4, 2011, 10:15 pm 10:15 pm
“While Obama spoke, the Alexandria crowd appeared captivated…”
.
as did ABC “reporter” Devin Dwyer
.
“The campaign did not make video of the remarks or exchange otherwise publicly available. ”
.
Why did someone give him a real piece of their mind? Still following the Anita Dunn strategy of the campaign packaging the material they want distributed by the “independent” news media?
.
“…juxtaposing Obama in Chicago with three sets of questioning supporters in North Carolina, Ohio and Michigan…”
.
Anyone think to get Joe the Plumber into one of these question/answer session to see how the oBama/DEMOCRAT policies are working for him since the oBama 2008 campaign?
Posted by: Michelle Shu Jas | August 4, 2011, 10:24 pm 10:24 pm
A president that still wants to connect with His Supporters. The other side wish they had a republican president(past or current) as concerned about them. President Obama is such a man of the people and humble that his haters are going to continue to boil at how down to earth and intelligent he is. Obama 2012.
Posted by: Tony | August 4, 2011, 10:44 pm 10:44 pm
Obama: “we got this huge big messy democracy.”
As opposed to a petty dictatorship that Obama envisioned the presidency as back in 2006 which is why he ran for the presidency. Too bad that darn thing called democracy got in your totalitarian way bam-bam.
Posted by: EPU | August 4, 2011, 11:30 pm 11:30 pm
Obama: “I didn’t say change we can believe in next week . . . this would take time.”
By “this” Obama means his socialist reconstruction of America.
And by the way, Obama led us all to believe that with all his “Harvard law training”, “his dedication to service”, “his love for country”, “his deep sympathy for our economy”, “his desire to bring back nobility to politics”, “his dedication to following his ‘well-formed’ conscience”, and all of his other bamboozling deceptions. . . that he had it all figured out that he could enact the positive change America desired within Constitutional law in no time.
But instead, Obama shoved through Obamacare against the will of Americans, omnibus spending bill after spending bill, takeover of the car industry, bailouts, and rampant government spending – all under the slogan of “change we can believe in” that he bamboozled Americans with.
Now that we see that all he cares about is himself, is hostile to business, desires the collapse of capitalism, desires the institution of complete government – China style takeover of our personal lives, we can, that is, those of us fair-minded Americans can see right through this narcissistic radical who desires a radical change in America that he didn’t, or at least he media refused to report on, let on to the American voter.
Posted by: EPU | August 4, 2011, 11:41 pm 11:41 pm
Tony–He caved in to the GOP and gave the country a horrible debt deal. I am a Democrat who will not vote for him in 2012. Obama is a Republican, and I can’t even imagine what another six years of him in office would do to this country.
Posted by: Susan | August 4, 2011, 11:41 pm 11:41 pm
What new “tool” is that? To grow a new engineered finger in order to expand the finger pointing indefinitely to avoid any responsibility whatsoever?
The debt will grow faster than the economy and this will be Obama’s legacy regardless of how he tries to spin it.
Posted by: EPU | August 5, 2011, 12:04 am 12:04 am
Posted by: EPU | Aug 4, 2011 9:47:33 PM
I liked it better when the Bush oil family was walking around holding the Saudi’s hands and kissing their rosy dictatorship cheeks.
Posted by: Jennifer | Aug 4, 2011 10:15:44 PM
ouch!
Posted by: Teddy | August 5, 2011, 1:18 am 1:18 am
Freedom, you can thank the Republican Party leaders for the drop in the Dow.
With 72% of Americans polled, including 52% of Republicans, wanting more taxes on the wealthy and corporations, the budget bill disappointed the majority.
The Republican Party’s claim that the budget can be balanced with spending cuts alone rings false to the majority of Americans, as the idea is so illogical.
Posted by: Lydia | August 5, 2011, 8:25 am 8:25 am
Obama has campaign supporters? That’s incredible!
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | August 5, 2011, 11:20 am 11:20 am