Text messages are roughly 10 times more likely to be read than e-mail, which makes them powerful campaign tools. But, as Sasha Issenberg reports, it's difficult for campaigns to fully harness the power of texts:
[T]he strict regulations around mobile phones have ensured that they exist in a privileged space among forms of campaign communication—the only platform where one needs prior permission to approach a voter.
"The law was written at a time when there was a small number of mobile phones owned generally by really well-off people, including politicians, and they were very expensive with no all-you-can-eat plans. The people who had them wanted to protect them," says Shaun Dakin, a marketing consultant and privacy advocate who launched the National Political Do Not Contact Registry. "Now there are more and more people who are cell-phone only." The cost of having a cell phone has come down in the interim, but most plans still charge users to receive text messages.
As a result, the durable competitive advantage in mobile communication isn’t technology but social capital: having a strong enough relationship with supporters that they will agree to accept intrusive messages for which they may have to pay.
The Dish 