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Kansas Nerd Uses Net To Shake Up Political Fundraising
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Aug 16, 2008 01:21 PM
from the will-it-still-work-once-everybody-is-doing-it dept.
from the will-it-still-work-once-everybody-is-doing-it dept.
ghostlibrary sends a note about Sean Tevis, an information architect in Kansas, who is running for state representative with the help of an xkcd lookalike cartoon and grassroots Net-based fundraising. Tevis had garnered more than 6,000 contributions, most of them small, from around the country, far out-fundraising his opponent. Major news outlets have picked up the story as a harbinger of 21st-century Net-based political campaigning. Reader ghostlibrary adds, "As a bonus, Tevis cites xkcd intentionally (rather than just ripping it off without crediting it) and, well, it's actually funny."
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Results of the election (Score:5, Funny)
"Strangely, he won the election with a +5, Insightful."
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Note to voters: go to his ralleys with signs that say "+5, Insightful" and "+5, Informative"!
How about some links? (Score:5, Informative)
Tevis' website [seantevis.com] and the comic in question [seantevis.com] should get most people started.
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Saw this last week... (Score:4, Insightful)
and donated even though I don't live in his state and I typically don't vote Democrat (don't vote Republican, either). We need new blood in political office... people who are a little more 'in' with technology, etc.
Re:Saw this last week... (Score:5, Funny)
I live next to State Line Road on the Missouri side. Kansas needs all the help they can get! I donated to keep the grass greener over there!
Parent
Re:Saw this last week... (Score:5, Funny)
We need new blood in political office... people who are a little more 'in' with technology, etc.
Great, then we'll just have them wasting time filibustering measure to declare Vi better than Emacs, or KDE better than Gnome.
Parent
Re:Saw this last week... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh get real. What kind of an idiot would put someone in office who uses Vi or KDE? I mean give me a break.
Parent
Re:Saw this last week... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I live in Canada... and I donated $10.00. Hell, I don't care where this guy is getting elected: If I can help influence an election by my tiny donation toward a tech-literate progressive, I'll do it.
Black Hat Man for Office! (Score:4, Funny)
Dammit. And here I was hoping we could elect BHM...
Although, I guess BHO is only one letter off. Or two, depending on your metric.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I still have no idea why anyone would give this guy money or vote for him. Is it just because he's a nerd?
Let's look at his education policy [seantevis.com]. Apparently his entire platform on education is "we should have the best schools". How would he go about making that happen, you ask? Why it's simple! By making sure they're the best, of course!
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You hear that Sean? I have an education policy for you, and it'll only cost you a cup of coffee.
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Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly.
Also, an eye-opener was, that that same guy originally had some weird attitude about immigrants, a la "american jobs only for american people", which he switched, when a huge cryout from the /. rolled over him...
And I really think he already was mentioned on /. some time (weeks-months) ago, at least I recall a particular cartoon, that with the 20$ thing.
Please chaps, please think twice before giving a guy money just because he is "from the internets".
And please stop political advertising on /., it really sucks, no matter who it is.
Parent
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
While I haven't donated, I say give the guy a chance. Has he thought everything through? Probably not, but our political system is filled with the merely ignorant to the truly cretinous caricatures or corruption. If he wins I'll be interested in following his story, see how an outsider does.
Or to put it another way, do we have good reason to put much faith in this guy? No, but we have a whole lot of reasons to not put any faith in the other guys.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, while there is nothing wrong with having a good technology policy and so earning the election and funding bonus for (almost) being a nerd, there is something wrong with getting money through it AND indulging in policies about topics like immigration in the way he did. Irritating that he didn't leave neither his original policy ("american jobs for american people"), nor his reaction to the community ("ok, now i see my primary source of funding (the internets) doesn't like that, so i revert and remove i
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Wow. Your entire post is one big capitulation to mediocrity. It boils down to "sure he's not good, but neither is anyone else, so why demand better?" I guess we get the elected officials we deserve.
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And please stop political advertising on /., it really sucks, no matter who it is.
I couldn't agree more, I hate that shit.
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Nah. He is like "I don't have a policy on immigration, so give me money for my policy on technology." - but indeed, he HAD and very probably still has a policy on immigrantion. But where can I read about it?
After all, the whole guy goes into office, not just the part of him with the cool technology policy and the comic.
Wait, you're telling me... (Score:5, Insightful)
... someone running for a state representative spot isn't posturing as having the answer to every single problem?
This is a problem with politics. What we need in government are people who know a lot about certain fields, who are willing to listen to others who know a lot about other fields.
Instead, as the parent post so painfully illustrates, what we as voters do is vote for the people who claim to have ALL the answers. And guess what? The ones who claim to know the answers to everything are the ones who don't know crap about anything.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a good point. Arguably, this is the reason for having political parties. He could say "well I don't have a detailed policy on that issue, but I like what my colleague has".
More to the point, though, the job requires being able to make decisions on pretty much everything. It would be nice to able to say "you don't have to know everything", but, well...you're only going to be able to do part of your job then, aren't you?
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Apparently he's doesn't know enough and is going to have some experts help him! Can you believe the nerve of that guy?
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I think what is most important in a candidate is being able to logically think about things.
This means listening to opposing opinions, thinking things through, and not bending one's values in compromise votes, if the issue is important (like Constitutionality).
Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, look at his opponent's issues page [arlensiegfreid.com] and you'll find even less than that. According to vote smart [votesmart.org], the incumbent has voted in line with the Kansas Association of School Boards only 10% of the time in 2006, despite his claims of supporting "Quality Education". It's hard to imagine Sean doing worse.
Parent
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Well, look at his opponent's issues page [arlensiegfreid.com] and you'll find even less than that. According to vote smart [votesmart.org], the incumbent has voted in line with the Kansas Association of School Boards only 10% of the time in 2006, despite his claims of supporting "Quality Education". It's hard to imagine Sean doing worse.
So, let's see if I understand your thinking. Our schools stink. This politician says he is for Quality Education, but he disagrees with the people who run our schools (which stink), therefor he must not really be for Quality Education.
As a general rule, if you think the schools need fixing, it is probably a good idea to vote for a politician who is not in the pocket of the School Boards. If you want to improve the schools, then, most of the time, you want to vote against the guy who is endorsed by the
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I think that your presuming that because a school isn't doing well it's automatically the fault of the school board or teacher's union is simplifying things a bit much (as well as being a bit insulting to teachers). So is assuming that everything a school board is for is automatically self-serving status quo preservation--votes on budgeting for facilities or textbooks are the simplest counter example there.
Regardless, an elected representative who wants to improve education but is deemed hostile by the sch
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Yup, this is exactly why I donated to his opponent.
Why should a guy get elected just because he happens to be a geek? How about electing someone who has a clue about getting things done.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Funny)
Great, just what we need. OOP.
Objective-Oriented Politics.
$KansasSchools = new SchoolSystem( 'Kansas' );
$KansasSchools->setBest( true );
$KansasSchools->save();
Parent
soliciting for money from non-consituents is wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
It's morally bankrupt at best.
The people in these positions should represent those in their districts, not those from other places (like affluent Silicon Valley where I live).
Re:soliciting for money from non-consituents is wr (Score:2)
I'm not sure where the relativistic logic is in this "stance".
The moral corruption is that money is an overriding lever for political success, not the source(s). In the winner-takes-all, money-makes-the-campaign, incumbant-safety-through-populace-lethargy, there's nothing immoral about an intelligent representative gathering funds by a
he should not be beholden to those outside (Score:4, Insightful)
His district. Not even a micropayment's worth.
Let me put it this way, me and my buddies here in Silicon Valley could easy drop many thousands (hundreds of thousands if we do it as a group) on political races in Alabama, selecting candidates that represent our views, trying to make behave the way we want (pro-choice, etc.)
But that wouldn't be right. Everyone is entitled to select representatives that represent them, and not those who live thousands of miles away.
This person should be working within his community. That's where he's going to have effect anyway.
Parent
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Let me put it this way, me and my buddies here in Silicon Valley could easy drop many thousands (hundreds of thousands if we do it as a group) on political races in Alabama, selecting candidates that represent our views, trying to make behave the way we want (pro-choice, etc.) But that wouldn't be right. Everyone is entitled to select representatives that represent them, and not those who live thousands of miles away.
Last time I checked candidates were elected based on the number of votes they received,
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I never said fund raising doesn't have an effect on elections. But please don't equate a causation between fundraising and election success. Sure, there may be a correlation, but a candidate is elected strictly on the number of votes she receives from her constituents.
It is amoral for a person in Silicon Valley to illegally vote in an election in Alabama. But I fail to see the amorality in contributing to a campaign.
Here's an analogy: the more (positive) air time a candidate gets on television, radio, the
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, but most people interpret the causation backwards.
The guy with the most money doesn't get the most votes; the guy with the most supporters tends to get the most money *and* the most votes; the people who are going to vote for candidate A aren't very likely to contribute money to candidate B after all.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeeeahhhhh.....
And his opponent expects to raise about $3,000 from local voter contributions, out of his anticipated $35,000 or so warchest.
You are sooooooo right! The only proper politician is one beholden to the lobbyists and corporate contributors that supply 90+% of the money to buy his election.
-
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, campaign finance laws mean you can't just drop your own wealth into someone else's pocket. At least in Kansas, donors are limited to a $500 per year. You'd have to set up multiple PACs and whatever else instead.
But fuck it. This is the way the system works. There's no law against outside donations. In the past year, the incumbent has recieved [ks.gov] large contributions [ks.gov] from Humana, based in Kentucky. Sure they have a national reach, including Kansas, but why should corporations be granted some right to i
Re:soliciting for money from non-consituents is wr (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed. I'm also not donating, because I'm not a US citizen (nor do I even live in the US). But, if I was ALLOWED to donate, I almost certainly would. Same applies for Barack Obama.
Now, some people reading this may ask, "why would this guy donate to a politician in a country he doesn't live in?" (or even, "a 'minor' politician in a state he's never even been to?"). The answer is actually pretty simple - the more politicians, ANYWHERE that support the same things I agree with, makes the world a better place in my eyes. Maybe one day I'll want to (or need to) visit Kansas. If I do, then in some way, the laws and policies of the place may have an effect on me. Or maybe I'll meet an American tourist over here, and become good friends - they might just happen to be from Kansas, and I'm always in favour of my friends having a better place to live!
It's a small world, and almost everything, everywhere, affects almost everything else, everywhere else.
Parent
View Source (Score:5, Interesting)
View page source (on his xkcd-style ad) for a hidden message to geeks.
Job title inflation. (Score:2)
Why would we give him that horrid job title and didn't information architect just exist as one of those "we cannot give you money but will give you a neat job title" that died off with the dot com bubble?
The actual cartoon post (Score:4, Informative)
Here's the actual cartoon on his blog:
http://seantevis.com/kansas/3000/running-for-office-xkcd-style/ [seantevis.com]
Stick figures and witty dialogue (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks for all your comments (Score:5, Informative)
Running for state rep means earning the trust of many voters in a few short months. Word of mouth goes a long way, but voters can't be reached effectively by email. The net's contributions make it possible for me to keep up a full time campaign at five nines while still keeping my day job.
I decided to run because my current state rep needed to retire. The 15th district needed someone better. I want to show the politicians in Topeka just how much difference a geek can make.
With your help I got their attention. Keep it up; we plan to show those people the power of technology. Keep checking the blog [seantevis.com] for updates and new comics.
-Sean
sean@seantevis.com
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Re:breaking news! (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, this is a month old. I gave him $10 back in July.
Anybody who comes to /. for the "scoop" is an idiot. What you come here for is the discussion with fellow geeks.
You must be new h- *checks UID of parent* -you really ought to know better by now.
Parent
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what have you done for him lately?
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