For political campaigners, here's a summary, with links, of what Obama's boys did so well.

The font on his campaign materials.

The advertising production values, creativity, tone and placement.

The absolutely brilliant use of text messaging.

The unprecedented Get Out The Vote movement.

The active and intelligent use of Social Networking.

Large hattip: Todd Defren

Its nearly time to take a breather from blog posts about the Obama campaign, so lets round up with how he can take his principles of involving people into the White House.

Everyone said it was inevitable that young people wouldn’t vote and people of all ages would think of politicians as remote, elitist and ‘not like them’. Obama has changed that. His resounding victory lowered the barriers and enabled supporters to participate, own a bit of the campaign and reach each other. Its a relationship story with the internet as the facilitator.

Obama can similarly destroy the other accepted wisdom that politicans govern in ivory towers, society as we used to know it is disintegrating and we are all powerless against the ’system’.

For an Obama government there will be greater expectations on feedback and accountability. Ideas being suggested include online forums where the public can comment on legislation, YouTube townhall style meetings where citizens can question the President and an enlightened approach to sharing information and asking people to contribute at local level to achieving improvements in their own communities.

A point made by Rebecca Knight in the FT was that he was recreating the intimacy developed by FDR’s fireside chats with the nation, seeking support from the public for his New Deal measures to revive the economy. Old principles applied in a modern setting!

How amazing that already he's launched his new site, www.change.gov, to promote a new style of govt.

So hope won through, but while talk is of the historic nature of the win have we also seen a new stage in the evolution of election campaigning?

Obama has built on the techniques used by Jesse Ventura and Howard Dean but taken them to a whole new level. His website and use of email has created a movement, one that has been furthered by other online users posting their own material to the web.

But it is not just about websites anymore it seems. Has the use of social media, and Obama's dominance of sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Youtube, been pivotal in attracting new voters, the young to his campaign; people who have also been important for the grassroots campaigning.

There are already suggestions that the big news is about the online dimension of the campaign. Huffington Post blogger Mayhill Fowler told the BBC that YouTube has been the "most influential player in this election" and they may be correct. While many factors contributed to Obama's victory, the tactics perhaps give an insight into the future of election campaigning.

My take on what will determine the outcome of the US Presidential Election.

If Obama wins it will hinge on hope. Hope that he will provide the change the people most want, and that he is actually able to deliver that change. While he does offer policy, there may well be an intangible element to Obama's support: that he will deliver the things the voters most want as opposed to what is actually possible.

If McCain overcomes the polls it may well be down to hovering pencils. Not those that are hovering due to the colour of Obama's skin but on whether hope is more important than doubt. McCain asks the US voter to decide whether this is a time for hope in the unknown or trust in his experience. He offers the voters an alternative change while giving them reasons to doubt Obama's ability. Equally there are doubts raised as to whether Obama will give voters what they want. Tax for example, is Obama too high a financial risk is a question which is asks and may cause some voters to doubt Obama as their pencils hover above the voting slip.

We will see what happens by hopefully early tomorrow morning our time!

All these campaign gadgets are great - but do they work?

Here is a post from an analyst at Forrester, the Daddy when it comes to analysis.

Facebook
Obama: 2,379,102 supporters
McCain: 620,359 supporters

Obama has 380% more supporters than McCain

MySpace
Obama: Friends: 833,161
McCain: Friends: 217,811

Obama has 380% more supporters than McCain

YouTube
Obama: 1792 videos uploaded since Nov 2006, Subscribers: 114,559 (uploads about 4 a day), Channel Views: 18,413,110
McCain: 329 videos uploaded since Feb 2007 (uploads about 2 a day), Subscribers: 28,419, Channel Views: 2,032,993

Obama has 403% more subscribers than McCain
Obama has 905% more viewers than McCain

Twitter
Obama: @barackobama has 112,474 followers
McCain: @JohnMcCain (is it real?) 4,603 followers

Obama has 240 times more followers in Twitter than McCain

Full analysis here