Missing the Target
2014-11-04 - by
When you read breathless stories about sophisticated high-tech voter-turnout operations, be skeptical.
I’ve been reading, with some concern, that Republicans are catching up with the vaunted Democratic ground operation. We’re told about canvassers fanning out 12 hours a day, seven days a week, armed with hand-held computers, linked in to a central brain that can access “a thousand of points of information about voters,” whatever the hell that means. (Is it like “a thousand points of light”?)
But, as Carter once aptly observed, campaigns are exercises in human error.
Case in point: Yesterday, the day before Election Day, a Republican field operative left on our mailbox a plastic bag containing about a dozen separate cards and sheets of paper. It had flyers for a number of GOP candidates and three long, text-heavy issue papers. There was enough material to cure insomnia for a week.
Now, it shouldn’t have taken a computer and a thousand points of information very long to determine that our household is about as reliably Democratic as it gets. First hint: We vote in every election, and we vote in every Democratic primary. We also contribute to Democratic candidates. All easily available information.
It also would not have taken much sophisticated targeting to determine that we had already voted this year – on the first day of early-voting, in fact.
Along with those valuable points of information, the canvasser might have noticed that we have three yard signs for Democratic candidates.
Nonetheless, the package was duly delivered, the end result of an expensive and complex GOTV operation.
Obviously, I was delighted that the Republican Party expended its time, resources and manpower on me.
Keep up the good work!
Posted in North Carolina - Republicans
Missing the Target
2014-11-04/
When you read breathless stories about sophisticated high-tech voter-turnout operations, be skeptical.
I’ve been reading, with some concern, that Republicans are catching up with the vaunted Democratic ground operation. We’re told about canvassers fanning out 12 hours a day, seven days a week, armed with hand-held computers, linked in to a central brain that can access “a thousand of points of information about voters,” whatever the hell that means. (Is it like “a thousand points of light”?)
But, as Carter once aptly observed, campaigns are exercises in human error.
Case in point: Yesterday, the day before Election Day, a Republican field operative left on our mailbox a plastic bag containing about a dozen separate cards and sheets of paper. It had flyers for a number of GOP candidates and three long, text-heavy issue papers. There was enough material to cure insomnia for a week.
Now, it shouldn’t have taken a computer and a thousand points of information very long to determine that our household is about as reliably Democratic as it gets. First hint: We vote in every election, and we vote in every Democratic primary. We also contribute to Democratic candidates. All easily available information.
It also would not have taken much sophisticated targeting to determine that we had already voted this year – on the first day of early-voting, in fact.
Along with those valuable points of information, the canvasser might have noticed that we have three yard signs for Democratic candidates.
Nonetheless, the package was duly delivered, the end result of an expensive and complex GOTV operation.
Obviously, I was delighted that the Republican Party expended its time, resources and manpower on me.
Keep up the good work!
Posted in North Carolina - Republicans