Project Orca: How an IT Disaster Destroyed Republicans' Get-Out-The-Vote Effort 578
cheesecake23 writes "Many talking heads have attributed Obama's success to an unmatched 'ground game.' Now, inside reports from campaign volunteers suggest that Project Orca, a Republican, tech-based voter monitoring effort with 37,000 volunteers in swing states, turned out to be an epic failure due to dismal IT. Problems ranged from state-wide incorrect PINs, to misleading and delayed information packets delivered to volunteers, to a server outage and missing redirection of secure URLs."
Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess this is what happens when your backward, anti-freedom police state party systematically alienates all the programmers and sysadmins and hackers, all the good techs and IT personnel who otherwise might have wanted to help you.
Good riddance.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Interesting)
It's like the argument put forward by Neal Stephenson in Cryptonomicon - the Allies won WWII because they had the best technology, and the reason they had the best technology was because they were't the biggest assholes.
http://markpasc.org/blog/gems/athena.html [markpasc.org]
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
bullshit, most Nazi technology e.g. aircraft was superior.
now that subset known as "information technology" might be another matter....
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
This sort of counter-bigotry and counter-hatred is as trashy and needlessly spiteful as any the GOP side can muster. Post-election is a time for healing and a time to work towards unity. Slashdot hates the polarized atmosphere of US politics, yet here we are deepening that divide even in a time of victory. Democrats, as the victors, need to be magnanimous, not petty like this.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
Laughing at the rage of bigots and hate mongers is good for the country. That is healing the wounds they created. We cannot work towards unity with those who do not want it. They hate us, they curse us to their imagined hell and pray that their gods strike us down.
I am no democrat, did not vote for Obama, but I sure am glad to see this country moving away from hate.
Re: (Score:3)
Wait, you're still mad at Jimmy Carter?
Get a slashdot ID, you're fun to have around. Seriously.
Re: (Score:3)
Post-election is a time for healing and a time to work towards unity.
Reminds me of the Star Trek TOS on the planet where everyone emulates early 20th century gangsters. Kirk says they should stop fighting each other and work towards unity. Mob boss says, "I agree but I gotta be the unity!" Fact follows fiction is what we have today.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Interesting)
Bullshit. The Republican base are still as dedicated to vengeance and pursuit of theocracy as ever, and still control the House so they can and will still stonewall progress.
The polarization of US is no accident. One cannot sit idly by waiting for ENEMIES to have a group hug. The US is too large to be one country, and as nature takes its course regionalism and the desire for self-determination rear their heads again. (The US has helped break up far smaller countries under UN auspices, but enforces Federal unity at gunpoint.)
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Interesting)
Can we get rid of the brainless AC posts already? They're all shoot-from-the-lip ignoramuses like this asshole.
I'm an Obamatron, but I can't abide the Huffpost. So I learned about this fiasco from Newser, which linked a conservative web site [commentarymagazine.com] which linked John Ekdahl's blog [ace.mu.nu]. John's a Romney volunteer, and his scathing description of Orca is informed by his day job as a web developer. And the there's Pudge [pudge.net], who helped design Slashdot, and who I presume voted for Romney, unless he considers him too liberal.
So obviously there's no absence of IT talent on the right side of the aisle. What is missing is administrative judgment by Romney himself, who obviously bought some IT snakeoil from somebody, and has generally managed to find total clowns to run his campaign.
People keep telling me about this brilliant guy named Mitt Romney who had a brilliant academic career (MBA and JD from Harvard), did well as a management consultant and equity capitalist, and accomplished great things as Governor of MA, even though the other party controlled the legislature. But I just don't see how that can be the same guy!
Re: (Score:3)
I guess this is what happens when your backward, anti-freedom police state party systematically alienates all the programmers and sysadmins and hackers, all the good techs and IT personnel who otherwise might have wanted to help you.
It probably didn't help that the Republicans consider Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman to be successful at IT.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
We can't help it. This stuff is just so hilarious. Instead of doing some honest soul searching and acknowledging the fact that the electorate has changed, the GOP wants to kid themselves with nonsense like this.
A server crash is completely irrelevant to the fact that you are actively antagonizing anyone that isn't an old white male fundie.
You run Communist style purges on your own top people and then are surprised when your "true conservatives" tend to be intolerable nutbags.
Re: (Score:3)
When most of the criticism can be paraphrased as "he didn't fix all of Bush's mistakes in four years" they are not trying hard enough to present themselves as an alternative to the current Government and could do nothing other than fail.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
So the "War on Women" is not part of this?
Care to remember all the Republican Rape statements made this election? Or their voice on the radio calling people sluts?
Or the way they court the far christian and nationalist fringe?
Only a 10 point difference? That is a fucking landslide compared to the average. What do you think the point difference was for others not in the old white fundie demograpic?
Re:Serves them right (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is it the majority of 'Christians' vote for the guy who promises NOT to help those in need?
Just doesn't make sense.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because they believe that PEOPLE should help people in need, rather than rely on the government to take other people's money to do it for them?
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet they want the government to regulate how other people (gays/women) should live?
Can't have it both ways.
Re: (Score:3)
What are you talking about? Both parties want to have it both ways. Republicans want to regulate morality, and free money, and Democrats want to regulate money, and free morality.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you actually believe that Republicans want to free money - whatever you mean by that?
This is what both parties actually do:
R - tax cuts, spend more on military
D - tax increases, spend more on people
Tax and spend is a much better fiscal policy than tax cut and spend. The excess spending on both sides is completely ridiculous. If I had to choose one though, I'd prefer the spending be done on the American people rather than the policing of the world.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Informative)
Ideologically, Republicans are for lower taxes, thus, less control of government over an individuals money.
Not any Republicans in my life time. And I remember Reagan getting elected. And tripling the national debt with military spending.
I think you're thinking of fiscally conservative Republicans. But those don't exist any more. Literally, they've all died off it was so long ago.
Re: (Score:3)
I was rather hoping the Democrats were going to give being the party of fiscal responsibility a try, as the Republicans had surely left it up for grabs. (That being said, if you were dumb enough to cut taxes when times were good, there still is probably a point in deficit spending when the economy is this bad because cutting spending and pushing it back into recession is... well, to borrow a phrase, how you become Greece.)
Re: (Score:3)
Well, I'm saying I disagree with you.
How can the Republican party 'stand for' those things when they don't do it, at all, ever in the last 40 years?
It's a sales point, not an actual platform. Hence, they don't actually stand for it.
But yes, the Democrats are now becoming militarized too. I think they're getting addicted to the kickbacks, too.
Re: (Score:3)
Except they don't do that either. They just meddle in your private life and leave you to fend for yourself with the consequences.
They simply aren't willing to "step up" once they've had their little power trip. They will try to suppress those that actually do.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
Who do you think the Government is? A magical socialist fairy entity?
The government is the people. The government is us. The government is the most effective way to help people that has ever existed.
What you are saying is "We'll rely on the crumbs that fall from a wealthy person's plate to feed the poor."
It doesn't work.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The government isn't a magical socialist fairy. But it's not "the people" or "us" either. The government is a collection of individuals who have leveraged their connections, and often their pre-existing wealth to get into a position where they control all the lawyers, and all the guns.
No, what I'm saying is stop perpetuating the poor as a class by latching them firmly onto the assistance teat, and work at integrating them into society as contributing members. What you're saying is we'll rob from the rich to
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they believe that PEOPLE should help people in need, rather than rely on the government to take other people's money to do it for them?
Governments are (made of) people, my friend.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Informative)
Any actual statistics to back that up? Or are you just spinning what you think reality should be into "fact". Because when people actually try and measure it, it turns out they do, and you're wrong: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/12/who_gives_to_charity.html [realclearpolitics.com]
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Informative)
Brooks discovered that approximately equal percentages of liberals and conservatives give to private charitable causes. However, conservatives gave about 30 percent more money per year to private charitable causes, even though his study found liberal families earned an average of 6 percent more per year in income than did conservative families.
This is another one of those things I call a "true lie" - it is a shallow literal truth that is used to obscure a more meaningful truth.
It is literally true that conservatives give more to charity than liberals. But it is a lie to say that means conservatives are more charitable. That is because the entire difference in charitable giving is accounted for by religious donations. When you take those out of the equation, both groups give roughly the same amount of money.
When religious giving isn't counted, the geography of giving is very different. Some states in the Northeast would jump into the top 10 when secular gifts alone are counted. New York would vault from No. 18 to No. 2 in the rankings, and Pennsylvania would climb from No. 40 to No. 4.
--The Chronical of Philanthropy [philanthropy.com]
The problem with religious charity, aka tithing, is that it is not truly charitable. It is about giving money to something that benefits the giver whereas true charity is altruistic with no expectation of benefit to the giver. Religious donations are charity as defined by the IRS but are not charity as defined by common usage of the term. [merriam-webster.com]
In extreme cases the money can be "laundered" such that it counts as an IRS charitable deduction but then is used for something that is not deductible. One such example is the way the Knights of Columbus -- a religious charity affiliated with the catholic church -- spent $1.9M between 2008 and 2009 to fight same-sex marriage laws in Washington State. [dignityusa.org] If a secular person wanted to donate money to a group like the Human Rights Campaign who advocate for gay marraige, it would not be considered charity. [hrc.org]
Same thing with the way Mormons are expected to pay a 10% tithe to the Mormon Church. But the Church turned around and spent $22 million of that to defeat the pro-gay-marraige Prop 8 in california. [faithinamerica.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
one is called slavery
It's called taxes which is actually a form of an insurance scheme. If you cannot criticize it without making false names for it, you must have no cogent reasons to attack it.
Attacks like that rich on epithets and short on reasons is why the GOP keeps loosing the moderate middle. Sure, it drives up the ratings of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, but not the ratings of the people that would actually matter (Romney/Ryan) as shown last Tuesday.
Re: (Score:3)
and are reasons why the smart ones who know how to govern (Huntsman) are never selected to run.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet they want to force others to live on their principles - gays, abortion, drugs, etc.
You can't have it both ways.
And being forced to help someone isn't nearly as bad as forcing someone else to not choose their own lifestyle.
Re:Serves them right (Score:4, Insightful)
drugs - that's just like the Democrats. Both parties support laws against drug use and both parties have made it clear that when they're in charge of the national government they won't look the other way when states legalize drug use.
Democrats aren't really united on this one. Libritarians are united in favor, conservatives tend to be united in opposition. Still, it tends to be the democratic states that legalize drugs, and push for reduced sentencing. Trend seems to be towards legalization, and much like gay marrage, I suspect it's the liberals that will make it legal, when it happens.
abortion - right to life trumps other rights. You can't kill someone just because they're inconvenient.
A person has a right to life (unless they are a criminal, appearently.)
A fetus is not a person. The rights of the fetus are trumped by the rights of the mother during the First Trimester. The SCOTUS established that in Roe vs. Wade. It's a good read.
hiring - the Democrate tell you how much you have to pay and in general what you and another person can agree to.
You're in favor of indentured servitude? How about human slavery and the sex trade [blogspot.com]? Both are situations a person may find themselves voluntarily, either due to misinformation or via social or economic pressure. Let me guess, if they make that decision, it's their own fault? [slashdot.org]
renting - the Democrats tell you what you can and can't do with your property, and what restrictions you can put on who enters your property
Your in favor of the landlord being able to enter a unit you are renting at any time, for any reason?
running a restaurant - the Democrats tell you whether you can smoke and Bloomberg (Democrat who switched parties but not stripes so he could run) even wants to tell you how big your drinks can be.
Your freedom to smoke vs. my freedom to be smoke free. You're still welcome to smoke on your own property. You're still welcome to make your kids breath your smoke during the most critical time of their development.
It's also illegal for me to enter an establishment naked, or with a huge boom box.
racism - the Democrats forbid people from rejecting racism. Either hire based on race (and do school admissions based on race) or face the wrath of Democrats
Such laws will go away when racism goes away.
heath care - the Democrats tell you what kinds of health care you need to pay for
Nope. They simply require that you have health care, which prevents you from placing a drain on the rest of society by abusing the hospital system.
money - the Democrats take your money so they choose how it is spent
You assume that democrats do not themselves pay taxes. BTW, you'll find that blue states tend to send more money to washington than they take in. Red states tend to recieve more federal money than they pay in taxes.
money - the Democrats take your children's money (though Republicans at times have joined them in doing so) so they can decide how your children's future earnings will be spent today.
President with the best debt record in the past 40 years: Clinton.
President with the worst debt record in the past 40 years: Regan.
Bush Sr. was the last conservative president who really addressed spending.
Spending under Obama has been trending downward over the past 4 years. It remains to be seen whether or not he spends more than Bush Jr. He does recieve props for taking responsibility for Afghanastan and Iraq war spending rather than hiding the debt for someone else to deal with.
Seriously, how is it that conservatives still believe this shit about their parties fiscal responsibility?
Re: (Score:3)
Not fair that you called a troll, but surely being taxed for things you don't want isn't slavery. I don't feel enslaved by W just because he spent $4 trillion on the stupidest war in human history.
And you're taking a simple-minded view of the whole help those in need thing. Poverty, hunger, disease are all bad things in themselves, but that's not the only reason to spend tax money on them. They happen to be things we can't ignore. They screw things up for all of us. The economy is less resilient, because th
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Funny)
"The Rape guy lost" "Which one?" Your party has serious issues if people have to ask "Which one?"
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Informative)
“But I don’t see how one’s going to start a newspaper stunt without being political. Is it Left or Right papers that are going to print all this rot?”
“Both, honey, both,” said Miss Hardcastle. “Don’t you understand anything? Isn’t it absolutely essential to keep a fierce Left and a fierce Right, both on their toes and terrified of the other? That’s how things get done. Any opposition to the N.I.C.E. is represented as a Left racket in the Right papers and a Right racket in the Left papers. If it’s properly done, you get each side outbidding the other in support of us–to refute the enemy slanders. Of course we’re non-political. The real power always is.”
“I don’t believe you can do that,” said Mark. “Not with the papers that are read by educated people.”
“Why you fool, it’s the educated reader that can be gulled. All our difficulty comes from the others. When did you meet a workman who believes in the papers? He takes it for granted that they’re all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He buys his paper for the football results and the little paragraphs about girls falling out of windows and corpses found in Mayfair Flats. He is our problem. We need to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the highbrow weeklies, don’t need reconditioning. They are all right already. They’ll believe anything.”
I often think about especially that last bit when reading slashdot. Of course, later on in the story it says "Miss Hardcastle apparently overestimated the resistance of the working class to propaganda." (or something to that effect).
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
I foresaw the lack of good GOP candidates over a year and a half ago. Called it just like it went down; Romney got the (R) nod and lost in the end to the incumbent. Nothing really surprising at all. I believe Romney had the economic know-how to help get the economy back on track, and the desire to see an America not weakened by diluted foreign policy and appeasement of others. I don't believe it's too much to ask to have a government who doesn't stifle business and doesn't let other nations step all over us.
The bottom line is that the GOP shot themselves in their collective feet. Obama ran a decent campaign, but Romney and the Republican Party showed just how behind-the-times they really are.
Re:Serves them right (Score:4, Interesting)
I believe Romney had the economic know-how to help get the economy back on track
First of all, I'm not actually convinced that the economy is in trouble, based on the gross numbers. GDP is back to it's steady climb after the hit it took in 08. What we're actually looking at here isn't a poor economy, but instead general issues with the cost of living for poor and middle class families, dwindling employment, and low upward mobility*.
Those trends started in the 80s. This was also the decade that we made a move away from Keynesian economics, back towards classical economics and the idea of trickle-down economics. Ever since then, the lower and middle class have seen their real income fall, asset ownership decline, and the cost of living increase.
I'm not convinced that the guy saying "More of the same!" actually has the ability to fix those issues.
* AKA the American dream. For many, that dream is dead.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
I liked when we apologized the living fuck out of Libya.
Bin Laden didn't even acknowledge Obama's apology to him. What a dick.
We're apologizing all over Iran's economy right now. Fun!
I'd be shocked if we're not doing some serious apologizing to Syria via proxies. Gotta be careful on that one, or we might end up apologizing to the Russians.
Of all the weird propaganda to come out of the last four years, the idea that this president has been insufficiently assertive on the international stage is easily among the strangest and most terrifying.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Informative)
Just yours.
Top ten states by % of college graduates - all democrats
Bottom ten states by % of college graduates - 9 were republican
https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/266758023177981952/photo/1 [twitter.com]
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting.
However, the NYTimes exit polling gives a more nuanced version of this. For those with college degrees, a majority voted for Romney. For those with Post Grad degrees, Obama was the overwhelming choice.
Source [nytimes.com] (scroll down to "Education"
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
1) One can certainly be anti-GOP without being pro-Democrat. I found Obama moderately more tolerable than Romney - which is really saying something considering how I feel about Obama. (Surveillance society? Authorizing assasination? Not even to get in to things like how TSA is basically being used for extra-judicial harrassment, which is certainly a bigger problem than just the Obama administration considering how the courts are punting on regulating TSA.)
2) Adopting policies that are pro-science and pro-math might do a lot to win over the /. crowd. Pro-sex might help as well ;-)
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
3) Not persecuting cannabis users even more than the GOP would be nice too.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, this place has turned into such a lapdog to the Democratic Party that I can't stand to read it anymore.
Mod me down. I don't give a fuck. This is my last slashdot post.
And the quality of Slashdot just went up.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
But you can't deny that criticism of the Democratic party/policy/members is a more dangerous affair on Slashdot. One has to be very careful in wording such criticism, and it's often necessary to couch it in a general denunciation of the political right for it to ever be considered for upvoting. For those criticizing Republican party/policy/members the task is much easier, and petty name calling and broad generalizations of entire social groups by those posters are often overlooked. Now look at the moderation in this thread -- the off-topic and overrated votes have been given out with uncommon generosity.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that what you are reduced to telling yourself?
You are almost at derp level potato. Get over it, he lost fair and square. Hate, racism and tax cuts for the rich are not American values anymore.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
What's really funny about that is statistics again go against you.
Jon Stewart, who I do infrequently watch, has an audience far more educated than fox news or the talking radio heads.
As Mr.Stewart would say keeping fucking that chicken.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
When, exactly, did the self-proclaimed liberal Democrat gunman come into your church and try to murder your children? Because that's the bar for hate your team has set. [wikipedia.org] Your people - particularly Ann Coulter - called for violence and hate and Jim David Adkisson answered that call.
I have to say I'm in awe of the of the Knoxville Unitarian Universalists, though. If that had happened in my church I would not have let that man leave the building alive... maybe that's because I'm a registered Republican? The Knoxville UUs held the man for police, and although several of them sacrificed their lives to protect their fellow Americans, nobody there took revenge.
Re:Serves them right (Score:4, Interesting)
Why is it wrong to hate someone who supports discrimination and racial/socioeconomic hate?
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Informative)
I am not democrat, did not vote for Obama either.
Laughing about the end of these sorts of values is not hate, it is joy. Try not to cry yourself to sleep again. That was a joke by the way. In a few weeks you might even be able to laugh at it.
You don't need to fabricate things for them to be funny. Sometimes the truth is more hilarious
http://www.inquisitr.com/241677/study-fox-news-viewers-less-informed-than-those-who-watch-no-news-at-all/
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Insightful)
The Democrats as the party of hate and racism. Ok....
Yeah, the Democrats sure showed their true colors when they demanded cops have the right to inspect the papers of anyone who looks Spanish. Oh, and let's not forget how they kept saying Romney must have been born in another country against all evidence to the contrary. And their hate sure was in fine form when several of their candidates stated rape babies come from God so women just have to live with it, and the Democratic Party candidate refused to even retract their endorsements.
What's that, that was all the GOP and Romney? Why, that's crazy talk.
Re:Serves them right (Score:5, Funny)
To paraphrase a Fox News anchor [youtube.com]:
Are these the facts that you cite as a Republican to make yourself feel better or is this real?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Republicans think the internet is a series of tubes...
Ted Stevens has been dead a while, you can stop pissing on his corpse now.
Demographics and the Republican Party (Score:5, Funny)
Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd hate to think it all comes down to how good your IT team is (even though I'm on one).
Then again, perhaps it is some comfort to the Republican's -- "All we have to do is better IT next time" -- and not bother to change the message.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, in this particular election I think all these stories about GOTV efforts and ground games are unlikely to be pointing to real deciding factors. In a 2004-style election where the winner comes down to maybe, but when you're talking about 5% shifts, that starts to get out of the range of what you can get from just better phone-banking.
Re:Or... (Score:5, Informative)
Ugh, Slashdot ate part of my comment due to a <.
Reposting:
Yeah, in this particular election I think all these stories about GOTV efforts and ground games are unlikely to be pointing to real deciding factors. In a 2004-style election where the winner comes down to <1%, maybe. And this year, it's plausible some better turnout operations could've flipped Florida, which Romney only lost by 0.6%. But to win overall, he'd need to flip all of: Florida (0.6%), Ohio (1.9%), Virginia (3.0%), and Colorado (4.7%). The first is plausible, and the second is on the edge of possibility, but once you're talking about 5% shifts, that starts to get out of the range of what you can get from just better phone-banking.
Re: (Score:3)
I would not be shocked to learn that that kind of targeted application of persuasion, knowing t
Re: (Score:3)
Were I to listen to my paranoia coprocessor, it would have me believe that every excuse offered that seems to shield the right from some serious soul searching also serves to make it sound like "the next time will be better" to all the mark^H^H^H^Hdonors. And the Romney team was "shellshocked" in the same way Bain Capital is when one of their holdings collapses after assuming mounds of debt to pay Bain Capital.
But for once I will diligently apply Occam's Razor and attribute the whole mess to stupidity.
Re:Or... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, you don't win elections by having more people wanting to vote for you. You win elections by having more people actually get to the polls and cast a vote for you. GOTV is critical in winning a race unless you're are totally blowing the other guy away, as in CA where Obama got almost 21% more votes than Romney.
Still, there's something in what you say. Obama's margins in the swing states this year weren't landslides, but they were pretty solid in a lot of those states:
NV (6EV): 4.6%
IA (6EV): 5.6%
CO (9EV): 3.7%
WI (10EV): 6.7%
VA (13EV): 3%
NC (15EV): -2.4% (Romney win)
OH (18EV): 1.9%
FL (29EV): 0.5%
It's easy to imagine that without Obama's GOTV effort he'd have lost at least FL and OH -- and conceivably (although less likely) in VA and CO. Flipping all four of those states would shift 69 electoral votes, bringing Obama down from 332 to 263 and Romney up from 206 to 275 for a bare win.
It's easy to imagine a better Romney GOTV effort flipping Florida, maybe even Ohio, but that's not enough. He'd have to scare up another 108K Romney voters in VA who stayed at home, and in Colorado another 85K. That seems unlikely, so an improved Romney GOTV operation alone would probably not have changed this election. You'd have to get rid of Obama's GOTV operation, in which case a successful Romney operation might *barely* have flipped this to the Republicans.
What is striking when you look at these swing state numbers is that we're talking about eight states and less than 20% of the total electoral college here. To win, a Republican has to pick up 79 of those 106 electoral votes. A Democrat has to win 32. It's no wonder the math geeks were favoring Obama so early and consistently. Writing off almost the entire Northeast and California, Republicans have to sweep the three largest swing states to win. Things are going to get tougher on the Republicans. This year, even the Cuban-Americans in Fl favored Obama; within a generation demographic changes could flip Texas to the Democrats, unless the Republicans get their act together with Hispanics.
So blame Romney's shortcomings as a candidate if you like. Blame his GOTV effort. Blame Karl Rove, Nate Silver, or even the 47%. But don't forget to blame the Southern Strategy. It gave the Republicans a good ride for a few decades, but change is turning it into a strategic millstone around Republicans' necks. Since George H. W. Bush vs. Mike Dukakis there have been six elections, of which the Republicans have won two but *barely*. Even with Obama's economic vulnerabilities, his 332-206 win over Romney eclipses the Republicans' strongest electoral college victory in the last twenty years (286 Bush to 251 Kerry).
The real problem is 37,000 GOTV for several states (Score:5, Funny)
Must have been God's will. (Score:5, Funny)
After all in the case of legitimate server outage the internet has a way to repair itself
Re:Must have been God's will. (Score:5, Funny)
Actually in situations like this the internet has a way to shut that whole thing down.
I got tons of Romney calls (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact the escalation of calls from celebrity callers including gov Ridge urging me to vote Romney continued until minutes before the polls closed at 8pm and I had voted for Gary Johnson hours earlier.
Romney's loss was a Romney failure, not an IT failure.
Re:I got tons of Romney calls (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Hmm. I received several phone calls with various scare messages from people on behalf of Romney. All hours after I had voted (neither for Romney, nor Obama; gotta love those write-ins).
"Obamacare..." -> hang-up. "blah blah blah" -> hang-up.
Look guys, I've taken a look at the economic 'plans,' and I use that term loosely here, from both of the major candidates, and I am simply not convinced that either will work. Trying to frighten me one way or the other won't work when it's not my brain stem (fight o
Quote (Score:5, Funny)
I forgot to add this great tweet [twitchy.com] by the author of the final story linked in TFS when I submitted this to Slashdot:
Long story short: Don't beta-test an election.
Re:Quote (Score:5, Funny)
now, imagine these guys running FEMA.
yikes.
Re:Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
*thinks back to Hurricane Katrina*
I can imagine that quite well, actually.
Re: (Score:3)
Heck of a job, Brownie.
Romney wanted to dissolve FEMA (Score:4, Informative)
.
Don't have to. Romney promised that he was going to get rid of FEMA once he got elected. That phrase certainly haunted him this last week prior to election day as Sandy's aftermath led almost all reporters to keep asking Romney about his FEMA comments. (!)
:>)
Re:Quote (Score:5, Funny)
One might wonder what would have happened if the Romney campaign had had an experienced business manager with an MBA from a prestigious university leading them.
Re:Quote (Score:4, Funny)
Romney has an MBA and a JD from Harvard and has proven success in business management, having shown consistent ability to move into a business he barely knows, learn the ropes, and implement amazing, efficiency-amplifying reforms that clear out the deadwood, or salvage the remaining valuable assets for more productive enterprises, so it's clear it wasn't Romney's lack of management expertise that was the point of failure.
*jerk off gesture*
Who prints a 60 page PDF? (Score:3)
The author of the linked story at Business Insider [businessinsider.com] sounds quasi-tech and was a volunteer for the phone calls. He received an email late Monday night with a 60 page PDF of instructions and lists of names to call, and complained that he had to print it at home. Who prints PDF's when they can just view the document on their PC and make the calls, especially on a home inkjet printer?
It sounds like not only was the development of this tool a disaster but so was implementation at the user end point. If this tech-savvy guy tried to print at home with limited success just imagine what the "regular" Romney supporters were doing (or not doing) when they got the 60 page PDF.
Re:Who prints a 60 page PDF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
My dad is 82, and he won't print out more than a page or two because he's too cheap. :)
But the guy writing the article talked about DDOS and redundancy for the servers so he probably is familiar with the ability to view a PDF (though for some reason he was surprised that he could not print b&w documents with just an HP magenta cartridge).
Re:Who prints a 60 page PDF? (Score:5, Insightful)
The average elderly Romney voter would go to the nearest public library, ask for help from the library staff, print out the PDF for free, then vote against their local library levy.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Who distributes a 60 page PDF when the whole rest of the operation is a web site? If they all needed internet access to use the app, why didn't the web application just give each volunteer their customized list?
As always, the group of technomorons at the top tell you it's all digital, then give out a PDF of a scan of a fax.
Re: (Score:3)
First off, he had to print it, because he wasn't the one making the calls. He was supposed to take the list with him to the polls, cross off people who'd voted, then hand the list off to someone else who would then call the people who hadn't voted yet.
But assuming that wasn't the case, and he just wanted to print it out: I print pdfs, especially the big ones. I like being able to flip back and forth, I like being able to write notes in the margins, and I like having my reference materials on my desk so m
Re: (Score:3)
Business Insider is pretty bogus site. I have to wonder of if they even asked for Ekdahl's permission to copy his blog. Which is here:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/334783.php [ace.mu.nu]
The Other Side Has Its Failures (Score:4, Insightful)
Two of the four tried to unload pamphlet after pamphlet on me after I clearly said "Already voted, thanks for asking, our ballots are cast." By the fourth day, I was quite irked.
How about we ditch the annoying door-to-door crap and stick to good old fashioned email spam? You can buy a precompiled list of my political viewpoints, financial status, and email addresses from ${SOCIAL_NETWORK} for pennies on the dollar. That way I can just filter and delete what I don't want to read instead of having to stand at my door trying to talk over some rambling campaign volunteer and push their papers right back at them.
Re:The Other Side Has Its Failures (Score:5, Informative)
Political canvassing can not be restricted under anti-solicitation rules.
Random google search reference: http://www.virginianewmajority.org/index.php/voter-resources/canvasser-rights [virginianewmajority.org]
It wasn't even close (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
The margins are alot higher than the Republicans want to admit...this was a first class ass whooping.
You do realize that the combined margins of all the swing states is about 450K votes, right? That's not a huge percentage.
Cybergate (Score:3)
Hmmm. That gives me an idea. Perhaps the next "Watergate" will involve cyber warfare.
Rich businessman != good manager (Score:4, Insightful)
I've had painful experience of this on more than one job. Something to consider the next time someone runs with the pitch "I have a lot of money, so I know how to run the country". Some people are rich through connections, looting, or luck.
Taking self destructive behavior to a new art. (Score:3)
The conservative Republicans - they've done it. Dozens of knee-slapping gaffes. Ideas that *laugh* in the face of tedious concepts like reality. Well done, fellows. Well done.
Incompatible narratives (Score:5, Insightful)
On the one hand, we have this story claiming that a failed get-out-the-vote effort was a significant factor in Romney's defeat. On the other, we have yesterday's story about how Nate Silver's statistical analysis of pre-election polls accurately predicted the outcome in all fifty states. If the first is true, then Silver's predictions were only accidentally correct, beating astronomical odds; or else Nate has somehow factored Republican IT failures into his statistical models. Neither seems plausible, so I don't believe the Orca troubles were actually very important.
Nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah so this is the latest fairy dust justification they've found as to why Republicans lost. Blame it on IT.
Just more fucking nonsense.
Modern conservatives really, REALLY can't handle having their entire worldview be shattered by reality, especially the reality that Obama was not an Evil Commie Kenyan and was not ruining "their" country like they pretended. Cognitive dissonance fueled by self delusion, but the tank is on empty now. Liars and charlatans are trying to cover their deception by blaming anything and everything to see what sticks, what allows the 'smart' guys in the party stick around with minimal guilt of hypocrisy.
Cheers.
The technology that burned the GOP... (Score:4, Insightful)
...is Robo-calling. In the 3 week before election I was getting more than a dozen republican robo-calls per day (I'm in Virginia, a so-called battle ground state with a tight race). Nothing says "You aren't worth my time, peasant" like a robo-call. By contrast I didn't get a single robo-call from democrats.
orca == fail whale? (Score:3)
Serious denial (Score:4, Interesting)
The Republicans are blaming everyone else but themselves. They've gone as far as to blame blacks for voting for the party that doesn't have candidates that publish books claiming that slavery was a "blessing in disguise."
Romney lost because:
1. He's slimy. He was an Etch-A-Sketch candidate.
2. Rather than court the independents that could have won the election for him, he courted the fringe. He picked that lunatic Ryan for VP.
3. He thought he was using the neocons. Wrong. The neocons used him. They were going to glom on to anyone who won the primaries and anyone paying attention saw this.
4. Because of #1, nobody could trust him, not even his fellow Republicans and certainly not Roger Ailes. Remember how Fox tried to hilight everyone except him before the primaries were done and then had to reluctantly back him after?
5. Not even the Mormons trusted him.
6. He even lost his hometown of Belmont MA, which is full of rich WASPs just like him.
People who know him didn't trust him. It showed.
Combine that with the utter vile rhetoric coming from GOP the last 4 years, is it any surprise that everyone with two brain cells to rub together disliked him far more than they did Obama?
Out of all the candidates that were backed by Roger Ailes' SuperPac, none won. Just look at the clown show that the primaries were, and the GOP picked a clown as a result.
Introspection is required. Until then, it's going to be a long cold winter of discontent for the GOP.
--
BMO
A list of things to blame. (Score:4, Funny)
From elsewhere:
mrshowrules [TotalFark] 2012-10-30 12:44:56 PM
List of People Conspiring Against the GOP, and therefore, America
(LOPCATGOPATA for short):
Liberals, Democrats, Socialists, Community Organizers, Geologists, Biologists, Meteorologists, Climatologists, Atheists, Muslims, Jews, Satan, ABC, NBC, CNN, CBS, PBS, All of cable news except FNC, The New York Times, The LA Times, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, Reuters, BBC, The Guardian, Black People, Mexicans, Human Rights Activists, SCOTUS, Europe, Movie Industry, Television Industry, Environmentalists, ACLU, The United Nations, Labor Unions, Colleges, Teachers (including kindergarten teachers), Professors, ACORN, National Endowment for the Arts, Gays, Judges, NPR, Paleontologists, Astrophysicists, Museums (*except Creationism Museum), WHO, WTO, Inflated tires, The Honolulu Advertiser, The Star Bulletin, Teletubbies, Sponge Bob and Patrick, Nobel Prize Committee, US Census Bureau, NOAA, Sesame Street, Comic Books, Little Green Footballs, Video Games, The Bible, CBO, Bruce Springsteen, Pennies, The Theory of Relativity, Comedy Central, Young People, whatever the hell a Justin Beiber is, Small Business Owners, Math, CPAC, Navy SEALs, The Economist, The Muppets, Iowa Republicans, Low-Flow Toilets, Breast Cancer Screenings, Chrysler, Clint Eastwood., Robert Deniro, Tom Hanks, Glenn Frey, Norman Rockwell, James Cameron, Dr. Seus, Nuns, Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, Jonathan Krohn at age 17, Fact Checkers, Australia, Mitt Romney, Rasmussen, Fox News, Lockheed Martin, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Paul Ryan, Debate moderators, Ben Stein, Soup kitchens, Chris Christie
And now we can add "The IT Department" to the list.
--
BMO
No news here... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Man, your server room has a high ceiling.
Re: (Score:3)
Must have pissed you off when Romney lost.
Go read that Obama quote again, because he said nothing like what you said. Leaving out words and attacking strawmen is not getting Republicans elected. You might want to make a note of that.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Did you see what that asshole said about Nate Silver?
He could not refute his numbers so he attacked him personally. Basically picked on him like the high school bully he used to be.
This is what is wrong with the GOP. At this rate we at least won't have to worry about them much longer. The old white bigot demographic is dying out.
Re:Republiclowns (Score:5, Insightful)
Mitt's problem is that he actually believed his own BS. As a "business executive" he should indeed have been able to run a brilliant campaign. The problem is, Mitt's "executive experience" was at Bain Capital.
Bain Capital is not a _real_ company. It doesn't build products or provide services. It is just a massive pump-and-dump and flipping operation. Therefore it makes sense that this isn't the place where somebody would actually hone executive skills. Romney's "business experience", just like his business itself, is a well crafted illusion. Bain Capital is a Potemkin village. Outward appearances suggest it's a real business but all it is is a place where people like Romney can take advantage of legal, fiscal, and moral loopholes to pump money out of legitimate wealth-creating companies.
After years of working there Mitt had himself convinced that he was a real executive. He wasn't. When faced with the real and challenging task of taking the presidency, there were no shortcuts to be taken, no loopholes to take advantage of. It was a true test of his business skills. And he failed MISERABLY.
Re:Republiclowns (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought these Republican idiots were supposed to be great businessmen and job creators. So how is it the Kenyan socialist communist fascist Marxist Muslim empty chair community organizer ran a campaign that outfoxed and outplayed them at every turn, even without having an entire media empire (Rupert Murdoch) spewing favorable propaganda 24/7 for free?
Because the Republicans jumbled crazy-ass social conservatism into their mix - Social conservatism which doesn't align with America any more. Ramblings about rape, transvaginal ultrasound, evolution, attacks on science. I'm not going to pick a loony to run my organization, even if he is good at balancing the checkbook.
Re:LOL rednecks (Score:5, Interesting)
Do they even have "the Internets" in trailer parks, yet? I would think it wouldnn't ve economical to lay down the tubes there.
You might be surprised to learn that your average trailer park superintendent may have more experience running a WiFi mesh network than you do.