Obama Campaign Deploys New Cellular Weapon 76
Hugh Pickens writes "Michael Scherer writes that the Obama fundraising machine has deployed a new cellular campaign weapon designed 'to trigger the campaign finance equivalent of an impulse buy' during key political moments in the campaign. The tool links two familiar technologies, SMS and one-click purchasing, by sending out an SMS message to cell phones and smart phones of tens of thousands of previous campaign donors giving them a one-click option to give more money. 'Campaign officials hope to be able to return to donors in key moments of emotional excitement,' writes Scherer. One person familiar with the ask says that the response rate has been more than 20 times greater than any text message solicitation Obama has sent out before and and the reason is simple: Even with an iPhone, it remains an arduous hassle to enter all the information that is typically required to buy anything online with a credit card. The trick is that anyone who gives even a few dollars to the Obama campaign is asked if they want to keep their credit cards on file to participate in what the campaign calls 'Quick Donate.' Now donors just need to write '25,' or '10,' and that amount of dollars is immediately drawn from their credit cards. One of the Obama campaign's best fundraising days in 2008, for instance, came right after Sarah Palin's convention speech. Now partisans can 'vent their outrage or enthusiasm by simply typing one number into their phone.'"
Doesn't Amazon have a patent on this? (Score:4, Funny)
One button donate sounds great, but what about One Button Bribe or Quick Graft? I tell you, corruption is the future!
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Not April 1st (Score:2)
http://swampland.time.com2012/03/30/the-obama-campaign-tries-out-a-new-cellular-weapon/
TFA is actually dated March 30, 2012.
On a side note... Why even bother with credit cards?
Even with an iPhone, it remains an arduous hassle to enter all the information that is typically required to buy anything online with a credit card.
Pre-paid or on a contract, one still pays to some company for the privilege of using one's phone.
So, why not simply send an SMS or call a number which would charge your number with either a prearranged sum or which would let you to type the sum in?
Sure, such practice may delay the money flow in case of all those phones which are on a contract - until the bill gets payed.
That is, unless the phone company is willing to ta
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Waaaah waaah, boo hoo, your precious Slashdot is only running 364 days out of the year. Whiiiiiiiiiinneeee
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Hope it's secure I could really see the future headline "hackers breach Obama campaign systems, 1000s of credit cards stolen"
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Okay ... Let me fix my original comment then ...
Hackers breach prominent payment service provider, 10,000s of credit cards stolen - including Obama campeign.
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If by "future" you mean "headlines we've already seen a number of times", then yes. The CC infrastructure has been breached a number of times.
Better ways to spend money (Score:1, Informative)
Obama is not better or worse than anyone else who's served as president. Might as well spend your money on other things, since whoever the successor is will be no better or worse no matter what you do.
It would be, if it was a sensible election. (Score:1)
It wouldn't matter if Obama was the choice against human candidates but it seems to be that it is going to be Obama against a republican. None of them are sane or human. Obama needs just one slogan, (nixons voice) "I am not a republican".
There seems to be a large movement in the US that wants to tear the country apart with some kind of weird idea that you can turn back the clock to somekind of fantasy land from the past that never existed.
Let a republican win and the US will let the bankers run rampant agai
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Mind you, this is assuming that voters don't actually hate themselves and their country
It's not self loathing, it shocking ignorance. Around 2004, there was a BBC documentary that followed the reelection campaign for George W Bush. Even the people they interviewed who were actively involved in the campaign often had no idea what his policies were, how he was perceived internationally, or what he had done while in office. The people they were talking to had even less idea. Yet all of them then went to vote for GWB. I suspect the same is true of Obama and I'm fairly certain it's true in mo
-50 (Score:2)
I wonder what would happen if you tried to donate $-50...
And is it still April 1 AM in Slashdot land? It ended 12 hours ago here...
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And is it still April 1 AM in Slashdot land? It ended 12 hours ago here...
Not possible. There is no timezone where April 1 ended 12 hours ago (you posted at 12:38 UTC), or am I missing something?
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And is it still April 1 AM in Slashdot land? It ended 12 hours ago here...
Not possible. There is no timezone where April 1 ended 12 hours ago (you posted at 12:38 UTC), or am I missing something?
As AC pointed out we typically observe a midday curfew on April fools day in Australia, although I guess that's just a local thing. We also just finished DST and I misread the clock, it was actually closer to 11 hours ago... my bad.
In any case, when something like TFA pops up that seems stupid enough to be an April Fools thing but not that much stupider than other ideas I've read about i'm never quite sure, especially when the local time of the poster isn't given ... I could RTFA but that's not the way it's
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As AC pointed out we typically observe a midday curfew on April fools day in Australia, although I guess that's just a local thing
It's the same in the UK. If you make an april fools joke after noon then you are the fool, not the person who believes it. This probably made more sense when accurate clocks were rare.
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If nobody believes it, it's a bad joke to begin with.
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I hate you.
A matter of trust (Score:2)
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I don't think many people are willing to trust politicians with their card information.
Maybe many wouldn't, but bearing in mind these politicians get elected in the first place I've no doubt many people didn't tick the "No, don't keep a record of my details" box. I'd also guess that the box was as tiny as legally possible and buried somewhere people don't read.
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If not then they are naive. Politicians are the clowns that have their thumb on every aspect of your life. Your puny credit card is nothing compared to their relationships with big banks and wall street and lobbyists and donors.
Poines? (Score:3)
Poines? Omg..
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I think it's safe to say, many tens of thousands of Americans have died under a Democrat than any Republican. Refer to WWI, WWII, Korean and Vietnam wars. When your lesson is over, come back for a test.
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So you are saying that the US is a different country under different political parties. I'm surprised that you dont get rid of the enemy within with a bit of genocide just like the Syrian government. How can you live surrounded by such traitorous scum? I suppose you havent found a big enough hole to bury two hundred million people in yet. I wonder how many tons of meat that is?
politics has become too damn corrupt (Score:2)
what obama is doing should be illegal, what they all are doing is immoral and should be illegal
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So, how do you propose to prevent a politician from being mentioned on the evening news or morning talk shows without stepping on the First Amendment?
Or do you really believe the evening news only provides impartial news articles about political candidates?
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yup, thats called fascism, the government and many companies are in bed together and has turned the USA in to a fascist-kleptocracy
spim, in other words (Score:1)
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Spimming/spamming me; robocalling me, even calling me unsolicited, are not ways to get me to vote for you, no matter the party.
I agree. It's bad enough that they thoughtfully excluded themselves from the do-not-call legislation. Anyone with any sense of decency would still check the list and abide by the wishes of those who have chosen to add their numbers. On the other hand, if they had any sense of decency, they probably wouldn't be in politics in this day and age anyway.
Response to reality (Score:5, Interesting)
So, if we assume, as pundits say, that big donors are not going to Obama because he wants to transfer all wealth to the lazy people, and the only people who support him are the young people who don't know any better, kids that are hoping for a socialist government so they do not have to work, how does Obama capitalize on that demographic? By using the one tool all these kids know. The phone. These kids, while they are in their drug induced stupor on payday, can click to donate a few bucks. They would never actually be able to write a check and address an envelope. But over a few months, they can donate $50 bucks.
Really, all kidding aside, this is the way a modern politician needs to collect funds. The maximum donation to a politician should be $50 a month. Anyone can do that. This idea of stealth funding of campaigns by a few large donors need to go. In the republican race, this has resulted in our choices being a polygamist in spirit, a polygamist in reality, a jihadist, and a one that wants to promote the idea that we should pay our troops to sit around the base playing video games and get high. Not a great list for a party that claims to be pro america.
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$50 a month
Anyone can do that.
I'm sorry to inform you that you're unable to understand 30% of Obama's voter base.
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The maximum donation to a politician should be $50 a month. Anyone can do that.
While I applaud your creativity, I would argue that setting any limit using a fiat currency is just asking for that limit to be inappropriate at some point in the future. The dollar has lost 98% of its value in the last 100 years, 70% of that since the 70s when we went off the gold standard. It will continue to decline because we choose to keep printing more of it, to bail out industries that have marketed themselves as being "too existing to not exist!"
Close to what a business might do... (Score:1)
This is certainly not an idea of Obama himself, this is very close to a business idea. And as we all know, he has no business experience and actively trying to destroy businesses. I frankly don't understand why people would want to donate every time some hyped up situation comes up. I guess this why democrats make stories up like republican "war on women". It never existed, but I'm sure they tricked a lot of donors that is was real to get some money from them.
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I frankly don't understand why people would want to donate every time some hyped up situation comes up.
I believe it's related to one of the things I learned in Sociology 101: Social groups tend to solidify their support against an external adversary, whether real or imagined. (The external adversary can be a next-door neighbor; he just has to be different enough to be perceived as "other".) Consider the fact that Americans were willing to put up with rationing and to buy war bonds after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, or to put up with the invasion of Iraq and the passage of the Patriot Act in the wake o
Macroparasitic electronic democracy (Score:1)
A de-elect button would be better (Score:1)
impulse buy (Score:2)
designed 'to trigger the campaign finance equivalent of an impulse buy'
He also wants to get the voting equivalent of an impulse buy. Sadly, too many people vote like this as well.
Negative numbers (Score:1)
What happens if I send -2000000? Will I receive 2 million in my account?
Who Better To Trust (Score:2)
than your beloved political party!
"The trick is that anyone who gives even a few dollars to the Obama campaign is asked if they want to keep their credit cards on file to participate in what the campaign calls 'Quick Donate.' Now donors just need to write '25,' or '10,' and that amount of dollars is immediately drawn from their credit cards. "
Neat idea! What could possibly go wrong with that?