The Obama and Romney campaigns have announced that they will be using Square to collect political donations. Romney's Believe in America jobs plan is #9 on the Amazon Kindle best-seller list; supporters can download a copy by tweeting about the book via Pay with a Tweet.  These moves signal an embrace of new technologies and new social ways of engaging with the electorate.

Simplifying donations Obama campaign volunteers have started to receive Square readers for use on iOS and Android devices. Campaign spokeswoman, Katie Hogan, said that the Obama team is developing a branded app that will send funds directly to campaign headquarters, eliminating the need for the volunteer to collect and record donor information. With the  donor information, campaign headquarters can make follow-up solicitations in the succeeding weeks and months. Zac Moffatt, digital director for the Romney campaign, planned a few tests of Square in Florida this week. Moffatt hasn't yet reported on the results of those tests.

Neither Google Wallet nor other NFC solutions from major credit cards are in play. The only candidate to accept PayPal is Ron Paul. In what might be a related story, PayPal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel gave $900K to Ron Paul SuperPAC.

Targeting local users Moffat tells Fast Company that geo-targeting makes the messages more effective, bringing endorsements by local politicians into Google ads. Mobile users in the same area receive an ad that directs them to a local campaign contact or event.

It is always about money  Small donations are the still the base of the Obama campaign, with 71% of the contributions at $200 or less. Donations in this amount could fit well with the Square deployment. Sixty-percent of Romney's donations are at the $2500 per-person maximum, more likely to be checks. The other three Republican candidates are raising money in small, medium, and large amounts in roughly the same proportion. In order to collect the money, in whatever denomination, you need to know who your supporters are.

It's not just the money in hand  Using Square or other mobile payment options are less about being able to generate large amounts of money in the field and more  a means to help with paperwork that generates mailing lists. Clay Johnson, who set up the Obama fund-raising mechanism for the 2008 election, reminds us that donor contact information is nearly as valuable as the currency itself. He reports on some of his experiences in his new book, The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption. Online petitions, he notes, are a familiar way to rally supporters to a cause. "[O]nline petitions that you sign are not meant, primarily, to cause change. They’re meant to get your email address so that you can later be bombarded by emails asking for money."

Square eliminates paperwork and generates cash. A Twitter promotion can put a political tract at the top of the Kindle best-sellers.   The few sparks in social media political advertising and solicitations are bringing fresh perspectives to political operations. These changes aren't as dramatic as we saw in 2004 with MoveOn.org or 2008 with Facebook and YouTube, but they're very real in an election that is likely to exceed $6B in spending.