The Obama/Madden Connection

I don't want to get too political here, but Chicago-Native and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama has decided to use his campaign funds in an interesting manner. TheHill.com reports that the Obama Campaign will be running ads in the Madden '09 video game.

The Obama campaign has purchased space in the popular Xbox 360 game "Madden NFL 09″ and nine other titles by video game maker Electronic Arts, said Holly Rockwood, the company's director of corporate communications.

Only gamers playing online in 10 states can see the ads, which appear as stadium signage or billboards, Rockwood said. (The ads are downloaded when gamers log on to the Xbox Internet service.) Unsurprisingly, all 10 states are swing states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio and Wisconsin. President Bush won all of those states in 2004 except for Wisconsin.

This is pretty interesting for a couple reasons, the first is that it shows that impact that video games are having on mainstream society. The second interesting note is that the Obama campaign is willing to try some new techniques to get young voters.

Obama had my vote when he backed the White Sox over the Cubs.