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US president turns to Twitter and Facebook to kickstart his push for re-election to the White House next year American presidents traditionally announce their decision to run for re-election from the pomp of the White House. But things are different in the digital age – which is why the cryptic web address http://ofa.bo/bWjHd7 kicked off Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election bid. That string of 20 keystrokes in a Twitter posting and an email to supporters on Monday morning led to a video page on barackobama.com asking: “Are you in?” So far, 19 million of them claim they are, if their Facebook “likes” of the video are anything to go by. Of course, Obama’s kick-off would not have been complete without the launch of a Twitter hashtag – in this case #Obama2012 – a political campaign tactic that dates back as far as the day before yesterday. The only tweets that featured in Dwight Eisenhower’s 1956 re-election campaign came from the quail he hunted with supporters before nipping back to hold an official press conference in Washington. The two most recent US presidents to run for re-election, Bill Clinton and George Bush, spent the first phases of their campaigns on a nationwide bus tour. In the digital age, Obama can cover the country with far less effort when he speaks to 500,000 of his grassroots activists via a live teleconference. Obama’s 2012 announcement is mould-breaking even compared with 2008 when he was a senator and revealed he was running in front of thousands at a carefully staged outdoor rally aimed at the television cameras. This announcement-by-video is unusual for another reason: the candidate himself does not address the camera. Instead, a succession of “real Americans” talk about Obama in documentary-style footage. Most of the voters in the video come from battleground states. “Ed” from North Carolina says: “I don’t agree with Obama on everything but I respect him and I trust him.” Ed is followed by Gladys, a Hispanic voter in Nevada and Katherine from Colorado – all are likely to be voting in close-fought contests. There is also young voter “Mike” in New York and “Alice,” an African-American from Michigan, who underline the need to re-awaken Obama’s most loyal supporters from 2008. “You don’t have to be Fellini to figure out what that is all about,” said veteran Republican campaign strategist Mike Murphy. The video ends with: “It begins with us” – a message that suggests Obama needs activists willing to knock on doors, rather than just write cheques to cover the estimated $1bn (£620m) cost of the campaign. Barack Obama US elections 2012 US politics Twitter Facebook Internet Blogging Social networking United States Richard Adams guardian.co.uk