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There is one image from Barack Obama’s standing-room-only political rallies that I haven’t seen yet in the ubiquitous campaign coverage. Maybe I missed it, but I doubt that the sight of thousands of people holding up their cell phones and punching in a five-digit text code so his campaign would know how to contact them would have escaped me.

Then again, it’s wasn’t Obama Girl, which may explain why it flew under the cable news radar.

That image speaks volumes about the innovative nature of Obama’s techno-candidacy. It’s included in one of two very good stories in the June issue of Atlantic Monthly which can be read online: “The Amazing Money Machine” by Joshua Green and Marc Armbinder’s “HisSpace.” Green’s piece throws a spotlight on the Silicon Valley insiders who led Obama’s record-breaking online fund-raising initiative and their novel use of technologies ranging from social networking to ringtones. “HisSpace” advances the story by picturing an Obama presidency based on the candidate’s campaign platform:

What Obama seems to promise is, at its outer limits, a participatory democracy in which the opportunities for participation have been radically expanded. He proposes creating a public, Google-like database of every federal dollar spent. He aims to post every piece of non-emergency legislation online for five days before he signs it so that Americans can comment. A White House blog - also with comments - would be a near certainty. Overseeing this new apparatus would be a chief technology officer.

Both stories make clear how Obama’s use of available technologies is just the latest way for candidates to bypass the mainstream media and head directly to the voters (and their checkbooks,) all of a piece with FDR’s radio “fireside chats” and Kennedy’s televised debates/press conferences. With Obama on the cusp of the Democratic nomination after a weekend of cantankerous DNC debate and a last week full of primaries, here’s one unrepentant political junkie looking forward to the coming online battle between Democratic and Republican strategists.

Read [The Atlantic/HisSpace] Read [The Atlantic/The Amazing Money Machine]

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