The New York Post is reporting that Hillary Clinton will anounce today a “mobile-to-mobile text-messaging push” to garner support for her presidential campaign.

As you know, there's a GOP Presidential debate tonight in South Carolina (Fox News Channel, 9 PM Eastern).

I'm not going to watch it until it makes its way in to easier-to-digest clips on YouTube and after I read all of my favorite conservative blogs for their reactions.

Besides, it's not like they're going to talk about any of the issues I care about, e.g., the Internet, net neutrality, etc.

Since I'm not going to watch, and I'm going to support whoever our nominee ends up being regardless of who "wins" the debate, (I can't vote FYI because I live in Washington, DC), I'll simply offer some free advice that I'd be giving to a candidate -- if I were working for him. So here goes:

You know better... Read my free advice after the jump

Justin Oberman’s post on the Edwards campaign’s recently launched SMS fundraising campaign prompted a series of questions from fellow TechPresident contributor Colin Delany about the ability of other candidates to replicate Edwards success.   

In response to Colin's questions, I was contacted by Edwards' Deputy Director of New Media Amy Rubin. She provided responses to Colin's comments. I have assembled his questions, her responses, and my commentary into this virtual interview.

A few months back, I chided John Edwards's team for not effectively using its mobile text campaign. Then I softened my stance a little bit as they started using Twitter more effectively than their own text program, and now I truly believe that they have the entire mobile messaging strategy right.

Barack Obama's campaign has an interesting example of the online-offline integration I talked about a few weeks ago. Having signed up for their text messaging list, I texted in my addresses to get a free Obama bumper sticker. It came yesterday and looks like this:

Aside from feeling some mild disappointment in not receiving the standard Obama'08 sticker to add to my collection, I got to thinking, and this is an interesting viral strategy. If I had to guess, the last thing they want is for this to actually be placed on cars -- you can barely see the call to action. Rather, the point is for it to be stuck on the outside of dorm room doors, where it can spread virally offline among college students. The amount of thought that went into this campaign (I got an SMS telling me my bumper sticker was being packaged up in Chicago with some TLC) shows you the premium they are placing on text messaging versus other forms of online communication.

The Sunlight Foundation takes *all* the fun out of the upcoming political conventions by highlighting who's paying for the crudites; a new profile of the X-Men-like Obama online team sparks a bit of professional jealousy in competitors; the Democratic candidate's economic advisor roots his thinking in the networked world; and a good deal more.

Shortly after 3 AM on the east coast, the long-awaited text message from Barack Obama announcing Joe Biden had finally arrived. But it was something short of letting the cat out of the bag. At 10:50 pm on Friday night, ABC News confirmed that Biden was getting Secret Service protection. The first official confirmation that I could find came from CNN at 12:45 a.m. The promised "be the first to know" text message came a full two hours later.

When it finally arrived, I was disappointed. Barack's team missed an enormous opportunity to communicate personally, to me, from Barack.

Let me explain to you where I'm coming from...

Have you gotten a text from either the Obama campaign or McCain campaign today? While McCain campaign hasn't done much on the texting front yet, the thinking has been that Obama will used the millions of mobile numbers he's collected over the last two years to turn out voters today. The question is -- how exactly? If you're getting texts today, from either campaign, let us know about them in the comments. In particular, don't forget to included details on what the messages say, how they seem to be targeting you as a voter, and where in the country you are (or, in some cases, where the texts think you are).

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