Clinton, Trump use Pokemon Go to catch voters
Just as voters finally find something to keep their minds off the interminable US presidential election, the candidates are using the delightfully distracting Pokemon Go to pull them back in.
Pokemon Go has been almost literally everywhere this month, whether it's intruding on the local weather report or at a funeral or, uh, in your incognito tabs. So it was only a matter of time until the global phenomenon had an impact on electoral politics and, indeed, Hillary Clinton's website is now promoting a meetup and voter registration event at a PokeStop near Cleveland.
Here's the description for the event taking place this Saturday in Lakewood, Ohio, not far from where the Republican National Convention is set to start just two days later:
"Join us as we go to the Pokestop in Madison Park and put up a lure module, get free pokemon, & battle each other while you register voters and learn more about Sec. Hillary Clinton!!! Kids welcome!"
Clinton also name-dropped the dangerously distracting game at a rally in Virginia on Thursday.
"I don't know who created Pokemon Go, but I'm trying to figure out how to get them to have 'Pokemon Go to the Polls,' " Clinton punned to a crowd clearly cheering for reasons not related to the actual humor content of that line.
Never willing to go down in a battle of one-liners without a fight, Clinton's presumptive Republican opponent Donald Trump responded by posting this Pokemon-inspired swipe at her on Facebook:
This has of course led to the bazillionth suggestion that Pokemon has jumped the proverbial shark. But given Wednesday's report that the game had hit 15 million users, it could just be getting going.
