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.
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:Serves them right (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, because Obama didn't extend and expand the Patriot act or anything.
I just love how the talking points of one party applies to the other with equal force but the big mouths from both parties try to act blameless.
The loss of freedom in the US is a collaborative effort between the two parties but they play it off like it isn't. This keeps the one party system alive and keeps the citizens asleep.
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:Who prints a 60 page PDF? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
It wasn't even close (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:LOL urbanites (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
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.
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)
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 ;-)
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.
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: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:Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
*thinks back to Hurricane Katrina*
I can imagine that quite well, actually.
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....
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.
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: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)
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?
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.
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: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:Serves them right (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)
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: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:Serves them right (Score:2, Insightful)
But then most of them don't do it. They *might* give their money to the church and then it just goes away...
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: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: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: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: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:2, Insightful)
You have it right there in your post - tax cuts vs tax increases. Ideologically, Republicans are for lower taxes, thus, less control of government over an individuals money. Of course, both parties have drifted pretty far from their ideological roots, and the Republicans are cutting taxes to please one group, while spending more to please others. Doesn't matter to many voters though, because they've self-identified as D or R, and the actual actions of those parties don't mean diddly.
Re:Serves them right (Score:2, Insightful)
No, if any Republican said/did/thought something at any time, the same belief/action/thought must apply to all Republicans in perpetuity.
It's a /. thing - like hot grits or first posts, but a lot more annoying.
Re:Serves them right (Score:3, Insightful)
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:1, 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.
abortion - right to life trumps other rights. You can't kill someone just because they're inconvenient.
hiring - the Democrats tell you who you have to work with.
hiring - the Democrate tell you how much you have to pay and in general what you and another person can agree to.
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
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.
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
heath care - the Democrats tell you what kinds of health care you need to pay for
money - the Democrats take your money so they choose how it is spent
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.
The only freedom Democrats seem to respect is sexual freedom. To them all other freedom's are subject to government whim. And on sexual freedom they are so extreme that they work to remove the responsibility that should come with all freedoms and instead have everyone pay for it whether or not they participate, or even approve of it.
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: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: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 feed the poor - where "rich" is anyone richer than me.
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, 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: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: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:2, Insightful)
How the fuck did this get modded insightful?
Let's see gays - that's one I'll have to give you. The gay marriage thing is debatable, but too many Republicans would even outlaw gay relationships if it weren't for the recent, and baseless, supreme court decision.
And this makes them far more dangerous than you're willing to acknowledge. What do you think the Santorum/Robertsen types would do if they managed to make abortion and same-sex marriage illegal? They would ban the music you listen to, the video games you play, and then they would go after the way you dress, which church you go to, the group you congregate with etc. Once thugs have gained power, they seek more power. Doesn't this totally remind you of the taliban? ...
abortion - right to life trumps other rights. You can't kill someone just because they're inconvenient.
Wrong. Nice right-wing inflammatory rhetoric. This is about the right to make your own medical choices without government interference.
hiring - the Democrats tell you who you have to work with.
Wrong. Prohibiting hiring discrimination is not the same thing as discrimination.
hiring - the Democrate tell you how much you have to pay and in general what you and another person can agree to.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
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.
Bloomberg can't do that thankfully, but no one should have the right to force me to inhale their smoke. Plus, there ought to be enforcement for kitchen sanitation practices. Nice try though.
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
Yeah, this is the same thing as yelling the N-word to a staffer on his way to work. (that's sarcasm, btw)
heath care - the Democrats tell you what kinds of health care you need to pay for
Wrong. This about making health care companies provide you what you paid for. This is about prohibiting local monopolies.
money - the Democrats take your money so they choose how it is spent
You mean like how I'm paying for wars that I didn't support? Oh, you mean paying for Haliburton for services they didn't deliver? You mean giving money to oil companies?
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.
The only freedom Democrats seem to respect is sexual freedom. To them all other freedom's are subject to government whim. And on sexual freedom they are so extreme that they work to remove the responsibility that should come with all freedoms and instead have everyone pay for it whether or not they participate, or even approve of it.
What about warrant-less wire-tapping? Indefinite detention? You cannot support either party if you care at all about personal liberties.
If you think you're informed or balanced, you're not. You're just wrong. Lay off that fox news crack pipe.
I don't know a lot of people who are happy with the Democrats but you made me think about how they're different than this group of Republicans and that makes me support the Democrats more than I did before. Thanks, I guess?