Looks like Smartmobbing the US Presidency has taken another turn with Barack Obama's new site which is it's own social network - a full blown network is not that hard to build now. 

I like Deep Jive's account so I'll use his post to highlight this development (which I hope has a web metrics back-end!!!!!!)  (I can't imagine they'd give you Barack video to embed and not be counting the number of embedded videos - assume they are).  On BarrackObama.com you can do the following things:

1. Create your own profile
2. Get your own personalized Obama Barack Dashboard
3. Make Friends who are also supporters
4. Find out where events are happening near you
5. Send and receive messages within the network 
6. Set up your own networking functions from within the site (that support Obama's)
7. Can do fundraising and setup fundraising functions (I'm assuming the site takes care of all of this).
8. Start your own blog from within barackobama.com - smart move - will up link relevance and search rankings.
9. View Barack TV and embed Barack Videos within sites, just like you can do with YouTube.

That's pretty cool.  As Deep Jive notes:

"…The real power is whether or not he can mobilize his own supporters to use the site — for everything it *can* be used for. That means he’s got signage at every event. That means he has people promoting the site at every event. And it means the man himself, during interviews and on stage, using the site’s URL every time he wants to announce a new meeting, *use* the site every time he wants to create grass roots events, not be afraid, for example, of promoting people’s blogs off-line."

Remember - this stuff only works if the Candidate really believes in it and shows it.

If I were Barack, I'd use the site for all my communications (after making sure it's "secure") and regularly publish metrics on RSS Subscribers, traffic, Video and Podcast downloads, etc - why keep it a secret in this case - in fact - if the site is really popular - you'd want to make that popularity public knowledge.

Hell, he might even go a step further and have "affiliates".  Why not?  Pay people who believe in his cause, his product, his candidacy - pay them to send traffic that results in downloads or, if he can measure it on the site, using the back-end analytics, people who sign up to show up to an event via an "affiliate link".

Why not go all the way …you want traffic, you want aswareness, use some of that campaign contribution money and start your own affiliate network.

And while your at it, reward affiliates for every sale of a t Shirt, Magazine, book, video, etc.  Harness the market forces towards your advantage.  You got the social network…now use it.