Candidates Use Unexpected Strategies To Engage Southern Brooklyn Voters

Last week, District 40 City Council Candidate Saundra Thomas asked locals to express the issues that mattered most to them by using the #togetherproject hashtag on Facebook and Twitter. She says of her new campaign initiative:

The “Together Project” is the platform where we can get together to state and comment on the issues concerning the district. We can plan and, hopefully, execute projects and initiatives to benefit our community and city. This project reflects how I see government – interactive, responsive and accountable.

Saundra currently has a Together Project post up about education on her website, and says she plans to highlight issues important to District 40 within the coming week.

While Saundra’s approach aims to make use of social media outlets to spread the word, mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio and supporters are injecting a more public aspect into the not-exactly-revolutionary idea of phone banks. Says the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

[Bay Ridge Democrats] President Justin Brannan sent a mass e-mail to local Democrats seeking volunteers to man the phones…

“All you’ll need is your cell phone,” he wrote.

Brannan promised pizza for everyone. “There will be free pizza involved. Andrew’s buying!”

Another public, food-fueled phone bank for de Blasio will be held this Thursday, August 1, at the Flatbush Starbucks (33 Hillel Place between Kenilworth Place and Campus Road) from 6-9pm.

What do you think of these new-fangled tactics as a way to hear from and recruit the public? And are any other candidates you know of figuring out innovative ways of reaching out to voters?