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Political Pop-ups, and Follow the Money
finelinebob writes "Now we know why Bush wants broadband for everyone: The Republican National Committee plans on bringing the campaign to Internet pop-up ads. From the article: 'Internet experts said that Republicans have entered a new realm of campaigning. Pop-up and pop-under ads of any variety haven't been around long, and little data exist to suggest how voters might respond to uninvited interruptions.' Okay, folks -- get your pop-up blocking browsers now!" While you're waiting for your first pop-up, pop on over to a website that tracks campaign contributions: vVF4N writes "Fundrace 2004 lets you enter any street address and see what people at or near that location have contributed to a presidential candidate, along with their addresses and occupations. The data is based on reports that campaigns regularly file with the Federal Election Commission. You can also look up a name and get the same information. The Washington Post (registration required) has more. Find out who your friends and neighbors are contributing to."
And now, just to rub it in, they're going to pop up their campaign ads at me. Brilliant.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
looks to me like a very interesting graphical representation of voter contributions, it seems a little scary though that I can access the name and address of everyone in my zipcode who contributed x amount of money to x candidate; I can see why it is necessary to keep these records public, but I can also see some potential for mis-use. Anyone else have this thought?
-ashot
Wasn't there some discussion about provisions in the CAN-SPAM act to exempt "informative" political messages?
:)
At that level, I wouldn't be surprised if popup blockers and filters against political spam were somehow to run afoul of DMCA (circumvention devices!) and friends. You MUST view this popup, we're checking! Honest!
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Governor John Bush only gave his brother $1000?
Zing!
or: As well as using the internet to rally and energise the American Public into voting for them, they are going to use it to further alienate and annoy everyone outside the US without a vote in the US elections with pop-ups? Are they that out of touch that they believe these pop-ups are actually going to be limited to US voters only?
There's potential for mis-use, but talk about an eye-opener. How many average citizens would take the time to request this data from the FEC?
A quick lookup of my street address was extremely insightful. I recognized many of the names from my years in the business community and guess what? Most of the Republican donors are owners and officers of companies who have been laying off workers (and outsourcing their work) with most contributing $2000 checks from every person in their household. The Dems, on the other hand, had more contributors, but they were much smaller contributions ($50 - $500) and mostly from small business owners and average Joe's -- many retirees.
Now I can see for myself why the Bushies have over $100M at their disposal, while Kerry's only at $22M or so. Knowing where the money is coming from helps show where government will be going -- and if Bush wins, it will be going into Big Business's back pocket.
"Republicans, appealing to the lowest common denominator since 1978."
Democrats do the same. Most politicians within this two-party system do the same. They appeal to the lowest common denominator.
I used to feel that my intelligence was insulted everytime I heard a politician speak on an issue. Over time, I have realized that politicians must appeal to their bases: people who are fanatical about the political party to which they belong, which makes them too blind to examine the issues beyond taking their candidates proclamations as gospel and people who are too dumb to examine the issues in any way, shape or form and vote for a particular party because that's what they've always done. The rest of the electorate is forever voting for the lesser of two evils.
I'm really looking forward to the first one of these I see, when I shall send a lengthy email of complaint about how I'm unable to vote in the election, not being American. Hopefully that'll suck up a few minutes of time of some campaign worker and help drain away the Bush funds. Just doin' my bit...
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Certainly do not use popup blockers for this, on the contrary, bring them up, click, bring'em up again and click click until you're tired -- it'll cost them money for each click... I reckon we could even have a "Click The Bush" campaign in which good net citizens would click on those ads several times a day to help rid the world of this pestilence :)
Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives.
you think either the Republicans or Democrats are that concerned about where the money comes from.
Now that's optimistic! If you've got a prostitution ring in Thailand that specializes in the anal rape of baby monk seals, you just have to launder the money before you buy the politician.
Randomly enough. They admit this is an experiment and they don't know what they're doing, but they've got, and I shit you not, so much money, that it makes it a perfect time to run the experiment. That's their actual, said it to the camera, position. It doesn't matter how much they piss people off, they've got enough extra money to fix it.
But I'd check the outrage if I were a European. The Republicans couldn't by a better publicist than the EU. Remember, if you look like you hate America, anything that pisses you off looks like a good idea. If you want Ohio and it's electoral votes to go to the red team in November, keep it up.
Jane works in a law firm. Jane likes dennis kucinich. Jane's boss, a partner, likes GW Bush.
Jane's boss can only contribute up to the maximum personal limit of $2000 or whatever it is. But, he can strongly suggest to jane and others that it might be in jane's career interest to do the same.
now, the boss can check up on jane with this handy web site. of course, nobody has forced jane to do anything, but still, the boss can check up to see what kind of 'team player' she is.
this is TRULY scary. do a search of your loal neighborhood and see how many lawyers' names come up.
Alienating the Americans ? How about alienating the Swiss ?
Each couple of month, in Switzerland we're supposed to vote about a dozen of laws, laws change and other subjects.
Just imagine the desktop mess if swiss politician start to make pop-up like the american : not just two pop-ups for two candidate, but dozens of pop-ups about pro and cons for each subjet.
Now THAT'S going to make a big wreckage on the desktop ! I think people will start to hate democracy... or make Mozilla the official nationnal browser for it's ad-blocking...
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Gee, this Fundrace thing is fun...and kinda scary. Especially if you normally don't want people to know your home address. Here's some of the giving habits of our favorite cast of characters:
Bill Gates - CEO Microsoft - Republican
Steve Ballmer - President Microsoft - Republican
Hilary Rosen - Consultant & President RIAA - Democrat
Jack Valenti - President MPAA - Democrat
Darl McBride - President SCO Group - Thankless Bastard
Ruby on Rails Screencast
Republicans don't care about people outside the U.S. Have you not been paying attention?! :)
The above was meant to be humorous toward the parent poster and a slight slam against our conservative leadership, which, if I may make an intelligent argument here, suck.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James