Can Data Mining Win a Presidential Campaign? 124
Nerval's Lobster writes "According to the Associated Press, Mitt Romney's campaign has contracted consumer-analytics firm Buxton Co. to drill deep into consumer data, with the aim of digging up 'wealthy and previously untapped' donors. (Romney digital director Zac Moffatt told political Website Politico as far back as June that the Romney campaign would 'outsource' its data analytics rather than develop the necessary infrastructure in-house.) In addition to hooking the digital side of their campaign to the Facebook data hose, Obama's election managers have hired a mix of digital directors, software engineers and statistics experts. 'Obama for America is looking for Quantitative Media Analysts, Analytics Engineers, Battleground States Elections Analysts and Modeling Analysts,' reads a want ad on the campaign's Website. The goal: to create data processing pipelines, integrate new data into models, build tools, and generate reports. In an election this close, with a rapidly shrinking number of undecided voters and contested states, a razor-thin advantage created by data analytics could mean the difference between success and failure."
Re:Intelligence winning elections (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a sad state of affairs (Score:4, Insightful)
when data mining and shaping the public opinion are the means to winning.
Re:In Romney's case, no. (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of his ideas come from working with Democrats.
I am not aware of an example of that happening. Paul Ryan votes with his party far more often than not - and far more often than many others. Can you provide an example of him "working with Democrats"?
And yes, I know I am replying to an AC, and hence likely won't see a reply (or if I do see a reply it may well not be from the same person) but as the statement was made, I'd like to see an example.
Extreme will be the most commonly used word at the Democrat convention, you can bet.
Nevermind that "socialist" - and variations of the same - will be the most common word at the GOP convention. A solid argument could be made for "extreme" being a much more valid label for Ryan than "socialist" for any politician who has been elected to the presidency in the past half-century.
Re:Intelligence winning elections (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you not have election budget caps in the US? :) of course not...
Of course not.
With the US government literally dispensing TRILLIONS of dollars of money each year, is it any real surprise people are willing to spend billions of dollars to effect how those TRILLIONS of dollars get spent?
The problem isn't the money spent on elections and lobbying. The problem is the government is so damn big and powerful and invasive that the only way to really succeed is to try and bribe it.
Re:An election this close? (Score:0, Insightful)
According to him, Obama has a 69% chance of winning [nytimes.com], but will only barely get a majority (not even 51%).
NY Times? Isn't that the paper that the last two ombudsmen have called biased? BWA HAHAHAHA!
Try this [cbsnews.com]
Obama has HUGE problems there - after four years in office, he only gets 41% of independents while Romney gets 40%. If you call yourself "independent", and you won't go for Obama after four years, you ain't going for him in November in the polling booth.
Gender gap? Yeah, Obama has a huge problem there - he's down 9% among men.
Likeability? Both Obama and Romney are a bit under water, but Obama has no upside - 32% are undecided about Romney's likeability. Obama's stuck underwater and he ain't surfacing. Romney has just weathered Obama's negative "But what about Bain Capital" crap.
Kind of a shallow poll, too. Wonder what the results would be if they asked who'd you vote for after asking about real-world concerns like gas prices or unemployment.
Oh, yeah, there's one more major issue Obama's going to have to overcome.
Joe Biden.