Mitt Romney's Vice Presidential App Is Worth Skipping

Mitt Romney's Vice President pick: there's an app for THAT?!

Unfortunately, yes. And we can blame President Obama. In 2008 Obama announced his VP pick by text message. This year, Romney is announcing his on a mobile app, which debuted today. ABC News has the campaign's explanation of how it will work from Zac Moffatt, Romney's Director of Digital:

The first official way to learn the name of the Republican Vice Presidential candidate is by using our new 'Mitt's VP' app. Users of the app will be the first to get the news on the biggest political decision of the year through an instantaneous alert on the one device most people carry around the clock -- their phone.

Let's call a spade a spade here: what Obama did in 2008 and now what Romney is doing in 2012 is designed to get you sign up for their e-mail list, text message blasts and -- the campaigns hope -- become a part of their fundraising network. If you think this is some altruistic way to get you the data first, before the media, you're wrong.

HuffPost's Ethan Klapper today pointed out how both campaigns will be collecting your personal information if you opt in.

Moffatt stresses that this is the official method of distribution of Romney's VP pick. But let's be honest here: NPR's Andy Carvin is right -- that does not mean the pick isn't going be first reported by the press, like it was in 2008.

Romney to announce VP choice through a mobile app abcn.ws/Ni8hFX You, too, can get a push notification after it leaks to the press.

— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) July 31, 2012

I say we stand strong, and stand together, and stop signing up for breaking news alerts from campaigns until they truly are breaking. And in the meantime, we may have to settle for a -- gasp! -- campaign tweet, news report, or press conference.

 

Follow Jacob Soboroff on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jacobsoboroff

Comments

[Theda]

03:41 PM on 08/01/2012

I have the Obama campaign app on my iPad. It's really good.

[jhNY]

12:29 PM on 08/01/2012

Happy to stand in solidarity with the author, as for me it is effortless to do so, owning no such phone. But I admit I am aghast at the prospect that anybody, anywhere, anytime, who is not in the business of politics, would download such uselessness so as to be the first to know such an inconsequence.

[MalkavCocktails]

11:31 AM on 08/01/2012

Is everything spelled correctly on this one? I'll pose the question to "Amercia"

[dollyfedup]

09:26 AM on 08/01/2012

I won't be signing up.

Not interested in knowing who the GOP Vice Presidential loser of the 2012 campaign will be. Therefore:

I don't give a ratzazz.

[aposey]

09:18 AM on 08/01/2012

All ready downloaded, great app, nice graphics and plenty of way to share information via twitter and facebook. I think ill give it a five star rating.

[julieJgoldengay]

09:17 AM on 08/01/2012

He'll Pick...
The Confederate.
The South.
Must Rise Again.

[gfs5541]

03:50 AM on 08/01/2012

Not downloading it!

[akdennis]

02:53 AM on 08/01/2012

How about we all get the veep ap and skip the Romney.

[demisfine]

10:30 PM on 07/31/2012

As if it will matter.

[demisfine]

10:30 PM on 07/31/2012

When I was a little girl we had these "dolls" that were cut out, and you cut out outfits and folded tabs over the "doll" to hold the outfit onto the doll.
I keep thinking Mitt's VP ap should be like that.
Kind of a "fold the suit on to the white guy" thing.

[Saving America]

09:15 AM on 08/01/2012

Or...not.

[doddman45]

08:38 PM on 07/31/2012

Nothing revolutionary here about cyber VP announcement no BFD, Joe. But the selection can have much to say about repealing the ACA aka the BFD.

[Janet Stockey Swanborn]

08:19 PM on 07/31/2012

Oh, I thought you meant the employment application for "Vice presidential candidate." That's worth skipping, too.

[Jacob Soboroff]

10:06 PM on 07/31/2012

LOL!

[OmniOmnibus]

08:09 PM on 07/31/2012

The funny thing is you won't have to subscribe to the app to get the "advanced" news of Romney's VP pick. It will be all over the interwebs as soon as the push goes out, so why bother getting the app.

[Saving America]

09:17 AM on 08/01/2012

So they can put their trojan in your phone!

[BraveWarrior]

06:20 PM on 07/31/2012

You have to think that adding someone like Sarah Palin to the ticket would raise the profile of this candidacy, rally the teaparties, and lift the intelligence of the national ticket. At least we would have one real 'leader' on the ticket. Ken and Barbi for 2012!

[Saving America]

09:18 AM on 08/01/2012

You Betcha!

[Kmetz]

07:10 PM on 08/04/2012

Obama is a professional politician. That's all he was in 2008 yet the press hammers Romney at a memorial for an unknown soldiers for agreeing with the British press, stating the obvious in Isreal, and for not insulting Polish WWII survivors by referring to Nazi Death Camps as Polish Death Camps. The polls following the trip reflect reality. Romney's numbers on foreign affairs rose. Looks like another 2010 runaway. After President Obama's term is up he will be known as the accidental president. His election was legit (because Republicans don't cry about loses loses for years) but the environment in 2008 was ripe for a rush to judgment. In November, America will realize its mistake.

[Jake Kua]

04:05 PM on 07/31/2012

Looks like a cable for creating false breaking news; something that the Tea Party and Members of the GOP have been doing since day one

[Unum]

04:12 PM on 07/31/2012

Looks like Huffingtonpost is grabbing onto that cable