Usually the cliche reads 'Don't compare apples and oranges' but in 2007 apples and politics go together exceedingly well. The new iPhone from Apple, Inc. is all the rage. As long as you put yourself on the waiting list and willingly to part with about four to five hundred dollars, you can get one of these state of the art products. Combining the iPod, phone, browsing the internet with Safari and a 2.0 megapixel camera, it seems to have it all.
With all these goodies, political junkies (like me) and organizers alike are thrilled to see this hit the market. The possibilities are endless. One blogger named Tacky at DailyKos already spelled out the possibilities.
According to Tacky, he/she sees:
- Lists are generated
- volunteer wakes up, logs into their campaign account
- volunteer is presented with a set of available lists to work and picks one
- the list comes up with a satellite/map google maps hybrid and directions from their location
- when in the precinct, volunteer touches the next house on their map. They get voter names, the form they're filling out and a custom script for that voter if there is one (think voter vault)
- After visiting the home volunteer fills out form and hits submit
- results are available instantly to hq
- after precinct is walked, phone goes into predictive dialer mode if volunteer chooses to call and HQ desires it. Not homes or inacessables are called on speakerphone with voter information on display. Forms filled out just like walking.
- when done, volunteer logs out of precinct. Unfinished contacts can be reassigned dynamically as other volunteers log in.
- campaign ninja plans tomorrow right after dinner
Cutting volunteer and staffer hours are like stars dancing in campaign manager's eyes. If there was ever a necessary waste of time on a campaign it was data-entry. The die-hard volunteers always came through at 3am to finish the task, yet imagine that enthusiasm bubbling out when they knocked on the doors of potential voters.
Apples and politics, happily merged together to cut down on data-entry hours and make more time for other things. America Coming Together used handhelds in the last Presidential race on a limited basis, though the 2008 race should see much more of this. For Apple's sake they better have a quality product behind yesterday's demonstration, you never know what glitches might come out and sway people back to Blackberries and Treos.
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