Newsom Enters Twit Race to Grab Way More Than a Million Voters

In a move that most likely would not have been made without the recent efforts of Ashton Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced his candidacy for the California Governor’s seat this morning via Twitter.

This web- and Twitter-savvy move (he uses the word “retweet”!) is the most immediate piece of a digital campaign strategy that also includes a YouTube channel, a Facebook presence, a Flickr account and a Digg profile, all lined up in the footer of every page on his Web site. Visitors are also urged to sign up for an email newsletter.

Campaign 2.0 was ushered into existence by Barack Obama’s brilliant campaign manager, David Plouffe, who really set the gold standard, even though Twitter wasn’t a part of his strategy. The microblogging powerhouse wasn’t at quite the same level of omnipresence a year and a half ago as it is today.

One of Twitter’s most persistent qualities is its malleability, lending it to any number of creative applications users can invent and implement. Of course, Twitter is the tool, not the strategy–next election cycle, there will no doubt be a new shiny new app to play with. But for now, It will be interesting to see if Newsom’s camp does something creative with this one.