In former times, not even more than ten years ago, nobody could merely imagine the impact the internet has achieved nowadays. Noone imagined that the presidential campaign 2008 would be decided by the greater online competences a candidates team has. Those times seem to be from a forgotten age though.
Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States of America, won the elections due to his lots of activities on Facebook, Twitter and Co. His Facebook account currently counts 6,933,920 fans. His Twitter profile meanwhile involves 2,722,502 followers. These accounts, however, are only the ones that are named merely “Barack Obama” – not even considered “ObamaBiden2012″, “Students for Barack Obama” or similar ones. Most of his fundraising focused on small amounts of money from the small middle-class people – quite unusual for a promising candidate.
One can doubt that President Obama could have succeeded to the White House without the possibilities of the internet. Powerful lobbyists had been ruling the campaigns for centuries. Now, the people achieved the power to decide about the ones to have the chance to become the most powerful position of the world.
To conclude, the political impact – at least in the USA – has settled where it would have already belonged since Abraham Lincoln had announced in his Gettyburg Address in 1863…
…that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
