MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. – President Barack Obama sent an e-mail endorsing Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds to hundreds of thousands of Obama supporters in Virginia last week, the latest indication that the lessons learned in Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign are playing out in key state races in 2009.
To boost Democrats, Obama has shown he’s willing to tap the database of 14 million backers who helped him win his party’s primary and defeat Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona in the general election. The vast supporter list also helped Obama bring in a record-shattering $750 million in campaign contributions.
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In this year’s marquee races — gubernatorial campaigns in Virginia, where Deeds goes up against Republican Bob McDonnell, and in New Jersey, where Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine faces a tough challenge from Republican Chris Christie — candidates are trying to duplicate Obama’s success using modern communication tools to mobilize supporters.
“Any smart campaign will take a look at everything that was done before,” said Mo Elleithee, who was a strategist for Terry McAuliffe’s unsuccessful Democratic gubernatorial primary bid in Virginia this year. “This will be a first test of how to take the ’08 strategies.”
The major gubernatorial candidates in both states have taken social networking to heart. They are all using Twitter, a popular and relatively new communication tool, to send 140-character messages known as “tweets” to their supporters. Through Twitter, Facebook and other online services, the candidates solicit donations, make campaign announcements and ask volunteers to go door-to-door.
Deeds, a state senator, sends largely personal messages, with notes about listening to bands such as The Who and Drive-By Truckers. Corzine’s campaign is tweeting prolifically, with several messages most days. He’s sent updates on online videos, notes on his appearances and a stream of biographical details.
“FACT: Governor Corzine played Big Ten basketball at the University of Illinois as a walk-on,” was one.
Christie, a former U.S. attorney, also tweets and has about 4,600 members of his Facebook group, a following less than half the size of Corzine’s. But Christie has also found help from Corzine detractors who have declared themselves in smaller, spontaneous online groups such as “Stop Jon Corzine” and “Democrats Against Jon Corzine.”
The Obama campaign shattered all online fundraising records in 2008, mining the Web for millions of small donors. While Republicans have been slow to adopt the technology, McDonnell, in Virginia, is taking on the challenge.
In the week before Obama’s e-mail message supporting Deeds, McDonnell, a former Virginia attorney general, used Twitter, Facebook and his Web site to achieve two goals within a matter of days.
One was to boost his Facebook following to 10,000 from about 5,000. The other was to raise $40,000 in online donations. At one point, he tweeted: “A little over 10,000 to reach my goal. Can you help prove that the GOP can raise money online?”
McDonnell’s campaign has also used geographically targeted text messages, for purposes such as contacting supporters who live in the Shenandoah Valley about a radio interview he was doing there.
