January 17, 2012, 9:55 AM — In the intersection of tech and politics, 2004 was the year of the blog, and 2008 was the year of social media, so 2012 will be ... the year of mobile technology? Sure, that makes sense, if you're a tech person who likes teleological progression. Unfortunately, just because it doesn't make sense doesn't mean it reflects reality in anyway. The campaign for the Republican nomination, rumbling this week into South Carolina, seems to have been conducted without the benefit of official smartphone apps from any of the major candidates! Do these people think they're running for president of the middle ages or something? Still, we looked through Apple's iTunes App Store to see if mobile junkies could get a fix from their favorite GOP candidate on their iOS device.
In the absence of top-down apps from the campaigns themselves, the invisible hand of the market is picking up the slack. Third-party apps for most Republican candidates have appeared in the iTunes store, which are mostly wrappers around RSS readers, auto-collating news and Twitter feeds that at least somewhat relate to the candidates. There's been plenty of third-party video ads so far that have been slickly produced by well-heeled Super PACs, but these apps show ... significantly less polish. Isn't Mitt Romney a millionaire? Doesn't he deserve a nicer font than Papyrus?
Seriously, something with a nice serif, that would look classy.
If you had to come up with a stereotype of Ron Paul's more technologically savvy acolytes, you'd probably think of someone who has done well and learned a lot on his or her (ok, probably his) own, without taking any fancy elitist courses on "design" or anything like that. A look into the guts of one third-party Ron Paul iPhone app would not contradict this! Again, this is mostly just an iOS wrapper that aggregates various public sources of information, though it's glommed together particularly artlessly here. And the font on the app icon looks to be for people who think Comic Sans is "too sophisticated." Also of note: the app is $0.99, which means you're paying to follow someone's campaign -- something Paul's free-market-loving followers presumably approve of.
The app also provides up-to-the-minute gold prices, natch.
Despite the fact that Newt Gingrich was briefly the GOP front-runner and remains close to Romney in the polls in some states, he's been dogged by accusations that his whole campaign has mostly been an vehicle to sell more copies of his books. Could this goal be reflected in his mobile strategy! Looking up Newt on on the iTunes Store reveals the usual third-party newsfeed app ... but also app versions of Newt's books! This at least vaguely counts as official iTunes store campaigning, we guess, for those people who might (a) still be undecided about which Republican to vote for in the primary and (b) have the attention span to read an entire Newt Gingrich book on their iPhone.
Sadly, Newt's alternate history sci-fi novels do not appear to exist in app form.
Are you a fan of Rick Santorum? Would you like to make a quick iOS app for him? Nobody else has taken the trouble to do this! He'd appreciate your efforts, probably.
Not the worst search result for "santorum," anyway.
And what about the guy all these people are trying to replace? While they've been yelling at each other and making mean YouTube ads, President Obama has been building a relentless campaigning machine -- well, probably, based on the official Obama 2012 app. It's pretty slick! For instance, if you're bored and think to yourself, "I should go to an Obama 2012 event," then you just have to go to the "Events" tab, and head over to one of those little red pins.
Unless they're too far away, like these are from me.
You can't give money directly through the app; clicking the "Donate" button sends you to a mobile version of the campaign website instead. Maybe this is to avoid Apple taking a 30 percent cut of all donations?
Anyway, we're sure that the Republican nominee will have his own app once he defeats his rivals. We promise to update you on it when it arrives. But the fact that none has emerged in the course of the heavily contested campaign so far would seem to indicate that it might not be the necessity that the techno-types assume. Maybe just spending millions of dollars on TV advertising will be enough.
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