TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

It’s rare that I get to discuss my two great passions, politics and technology, within the same context, but the day has come. The Obama campaign has released an iPhone application that, I think, is a sign of what we’re going to see in politics in the coming years: campaigning at your fingertips.

Besides its excellent integration of media (video clips of Obama speaking or being interviewed), this application does two incredible things. First, this application sorts your contacts by battleground state. So, if your sister-in-law lives in Wisconsin, her name will show up in the “Call Friends” area so you can call them and convince them to vote for Obama.

There is a lot of potential here. Calling up potential voters in your area to convince them to vote for your candidate is mostly done at campaign headquarters using phone banks. Rather than using phone banks, though, which are limited in number and thus in the amount of people who can be calling at a given time, how about this application connects to a computer via Bonjour and accesses local numbers to call. This would allow a potentially-unlimited number of people to do phone banking without violating potential voter’s privacy (giving their numbers away).

Second, by using CoreLocation, the application lists local campaign events that are close to the user. This allows Obama supporters to get involved immediately with the campaign, and to connect with other supporters.

But think of what this feature could develop into. If a location-based social network is built into this application, supporters can begin to campaign on an unprecedented scale and in an unprecedented way. Supporters could opt in on a website component of this social network so their location is shown to other supporters within a certain radius of them. Then, supporters could post campaign events (whatever they are — fundraisers, sign-waving, meetings, et cetera) which would show up in the “events” area for supporters in the area. They could then confirm they will attend. This would take the power of meetup groups to an entirely new level.

But think about this a little more, too. The application already lists video clips of Obama and other campaign officials. Consider this: when doing precinct walks, campaign supporters are now beginning to bring along video clips on PocketPCs to show potential voters. This application could distribute these kinds of videos right in the application — no need to search YouTube, find them and save them to your PocketPC. Just open the campaign application and go to the media section.

Same with campaign literature. it’s can all be in the application, on your phone. This stuff is game-changing.

(Via Faruk Ates.)