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Kansas Nerd Uses Net To Shake Up Political Fundraising

Posted by kdawson on from the will-it-still-work-once-everybody-is-doing-it dept.

ghostlibrary sends a note about Sean Tevis, an information architect in Kansas, who is running for state representative with the help of an xkcd lookalike cartoon and grassroots Net-based fundraising. Tevis had garnered more than 6,000 contributions, most of them small, from around the country, far out-fundraising his opponent. Major news outlets have picked up the story as a harbinger of 21st-century Net-based political campaigning. Reader ghostlibrary adds, "As a bonus, Tevis cites xkcd intentionally (rather than just ripping it off without crediting it) and, well, it's actually funny."

27 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. Results of the election by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Strangely, he won the election with a +5, Insightful."

    1. Re:Results of the election by Tolkien · · Score: 3, Funny

      Note to voters: go to his ralleys with signs that say "+5, Insightful" and "+5, Informative"!

      --
      how is babby formed?
  2. How about some links? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    How about some links to the guy?

    Tevis' website and the comic in question should get most people started.

    1. Re:How about some links? by smartdreamer · · Score: 3, Funny

      Here are the cartoon's link and the guy's home page.

  3. Saw this last week... by fitten · · Score: 4, Insightful

    and donated even though I don't live in his state and I typically don't vote Democrat (don't vote Republican, either). We need new blood in political office... people who are a little more 'in' with technology, etc.

    1. Re:Saw this last week... by dattaway · · Score: 4, Funny

      I live next to State Line Road on the Missouri side. Kansas needs all the help they can get! I donated to keep the grass greener over there!

    2. Re:Saw this last week... by mhall119 · · Score: 5, Funny

      We need new blood in political office... people who are a little more 'in' with technology, etc.

      Great, then we'll just have them wasting time filibustering measure to declare Vi better than Emacs, or KDE better than Gnome.

      --
      http://www.mhall119.com
    3. Re:Saw this last week... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oh get real. What kind of an idiot would put someone in office who uses Vi or KDE? I mean give me a break.

    4. Re:Saw this last week... by fugue · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...or just as alien from the usual content of the Senate meetings--and just as opaque--the actual laws that the senators vote on...

      --
      "The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
  4. Black Hat Man for Office! by Xenographic · · Score: 3, Funny

    Dammit. And here I was hoping we could elect BHM...

    Although, I guess BHO is only one letter off. Or two, depending on your metric.

  5. Re:breaking news! by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Once again, /. is right there, breaking news, reprinting from Digg 3 weeks late.

    Seriously, this is a month old. I gave him $10 back in July.

    Anybody who comes to /. for the "scoop" is an idiot. What you come here for is the discussion with fellow geeks.

    You must be new h- *checks UID of parent* -you really ought to know better by now.

    --
    Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
  6. Why? by xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I still have no idea why anyone would give this guy money or vote for him. Is it just because he's a nerd?

    Let's look at his education policy. Apparently his entire platform on education is "we should have the best schools". How would he go about making that happen, you ask? Why it's simple! By making sure they're the best, of course!

    1. Re:Why? by Meshugga · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Exactly.

      Also, an eye-opener was, that that same guy originally had some weird attitude about immigrants, a la "american jobs only for american people", which he switched, when a huge cryout from the /. rolled over him...

      And I really think he already was mentioned on /. some time (weeks-months) ago, at least I recall a particular cartoon, that with the 20$ thing.

      Please chaps, please think twice before giving a guy money just because he is "from the internets".

      And please stop political advertising on /., it really sucks, no matter who it is.

    2. Re:Why? by ShadeOfBlue · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While I haven't donated, I say give the guy a chance. Has he thought everything through? Probably not, but our political system is filled with the merely ignorant to the truly cretinous caricatures or corruption. If he wins I'll be interested in following his story, see how an outsider does.

      Or to put it another way, do we have good reason to put much faith in this guy? No, but we have a whole lot of reasons to not put any faith in the other guys.

    3. Re:Why? by Meshugga · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, while there is nothing wrong with having a good technology policy and so earning the election and funding bonus for (almost) being a nerd, there is something wrong with getting money through it AND indulging in policies about topics like immigration in the way he did. Irritating that he didn't leave neither his original policy ("american jobs for american people"), nor his reaction to the community ("ok, now i see my primary source of funding (the internets) doesn't like that, so i revert and remove it from my programme").

      At least, there is something wrong with people giving him money without being informed about his *other* policies (or his general mindset, that is).

      I'm sorry to say this, but he plays you guys like sock puppets.

    4. Re:Why? by Meshugga · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nah. He is like "I don't have a policy on immigration, so give me money for my policy on technology." - but indeed, he HAD and very probably still has a policy on immigrantion. But where can I read about it?

      After all, the whole guy goes into office, not just the part of him with the cool technology policy and the comic.

    5. Re:Why? by greg1104 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, look at his opponent's issues page and you'll find even less than that. According to vote smart, the incumbent has voted in line with the Kansas Association of School Boards only 10% of the time in 2006, despite his claims of supporting "Quality Education". It's hard to imagine Sean doing worse.

    6. Re:Why? by Thaddeaus · · Score: 3, Interesting

      And how do you set the standard? Are you going to go by the whole "X at Y level" where X is the subject and Y is the grade? What if a 5th grade teacher has five kids who come into their class and can't read beyond a second grade level? Should she just ignore them and make sure the rest of the kids are at at least 5th grade? Or devote a lot of her time to helping the five kids at the suffering of the other 22? And what if the majority of the class doesn't even get to the fifth grade level, only the fourth? Even if that's a 100% increase, it would still be failing. Should we blame the teachers for helping kids to the best of theirs and hers abilities? And before you ask, no, kids do not get held back for something as simple as not being able to read.

      Oh, what's that you say? We should send them to the special education room? Which one, the underfunded, thus understaffed and overworked one? I'm sure that's going to do wonders for those kids. But let's face it, the parents of the "normal" kids don't want to pay for some "special" kids to get "special treatment" just because they're not as smart as little Jimmy Normal.

      I think the better idea is to simply fail the schools and take away all their money and then have the district pay to send all the kids to another school district. You know, pay with all that money that's rolling in from the magical fairy elves who love education. You know the ones, they're imaginary.

      And about your standards, I'm guessing you want some sort of test for this standard? You know what will NEVER happen, each state definitely won't have their own standard for each grade and therefore each state definitely won't have their version of the test. That will NEVER happen. And since that will NEVER happen, we shouldn't go and set a nationwide standard or anything, because that would be TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT and that would be BADDDDDDDD. Instead, if anything like the above happens we should simply ignore it and move on. Oh and take their money away. Because after all, the kids must be learning something, right? Right? Aren't they?



      All of this comes from a teacher of 30 years who is really sick and tired of all of this shit. Seriously, if I have to teach another kid how to JUST pass a test and nothing more, I'll probably %!$*%& [NO CARRIER]

    7. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Wow. Your entire post is one big capitulation to mediocrity. It boils down to "sure he's not good, but neither is anyone else, so why demand better?" I guess we get the elected officials we deserve.

    8. Re:Why? by B3ryllium · · Score: 3, Funny

      Great, just what we need. OOP.

      Objective-Oriented Politics.

      $KansasSchools = new SchoolSystem( 'Kansas' );
      $KansasSchools->setBest( true );
      $KansasSchools->save();

  7. View Source by zerocool^ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    View page source (on his xkcd-style ad) for a hidden message to geeks.

    --
    sig?
  8. Re:soliciting for money from non-consituents is wr by YttriumOxide · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Agreed. I'm also not donating, because I'm not a US citizen (nor do I even live in the US). But, if I was ALLOWED to donate, I almost certainly would. Same applies for Barack Obama.

    Now, some people reading this may ask, "why would this guy donate to a politician in a country he doesn't live in?" (or even, "a 'minor' politician in a state he's never even been to?"). The answer is actually pretty simple - the more politicians, ANYWHERE that support the same things I agree with, makes the world a better place in my eyes. Maybe one day I'll want to (or need to) visit Kansas. If I do, then in some way, the laws and policies of the place may have an effect on me. Or maybe I'll meet an American tourist over here, and become good friends - they might just happen to be from Kansas, and I'm always in favour of my friends having a better place to live!
    It's a small world, and almost everything, everywhere, affects almost everything else, everywhere else.

    --
    My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
    Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
  9. Wait, you're telling me... by Legion_SB · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... someone running for a state representative spot isn't posturing as having the answer to every single problem?

    This is a problem with politics. What we need in government are people who know a lot about certain fields, who are willing to listen to others who know a lot about other fields.

    Instead, as the parent post so painfully illustrates, what we as voters do is vote for the people who claim to have ALL the answers. And guess what? The ones who claim to know the answers to everything are the ones who don't know crap about anything.

    --
    'a';DROP TABLE users; SELECT * FROM DATA WHERE name LIKE '%'... if you're reading this, it didn't work.
    1. Re:Wait, you're telling me... by Thaddeaus · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Yeah, what I can't believe is how in the comment discussion about the food tax, he replies back that he's going to put his full plan online

      after a couple of economists have taken a look at it.

      Apparently he's doesn't know enough and is going to have some experts help him! Can you believe the nerve of that guy?

  10. he should not be beholden to those outside by YesIAmAScript · · Score: 3, Insightful

    His district. Not even a micropayment's worth.

    Let me put it this way, me and my buddies here in Silicon Valley could easy drop many thousands (hundreds of thousands if we do it as a group) on political races in Alabama, selecting candidates that represent our views, trying to make behave the way we want (pro-choice, etc.)

    But that wouldn't be right. Everyone is entitled to select representatives that represent them, and not those who live thousands of miles away.

    This person should be working within his community. That's where he's going to have effect anyway.

    --
    http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
  11. The actual cartoon post by mariushm · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here's the actual cartoon on his blog:

    http://seantevis.com/kansas/3000/running-for-office-xkcd-style/

  12. Thanks for all your comments by seantevis · · Score: 5, Informative

    We've been on a few sites, but making it onto /. is something special.

    Running for state rep means earning the trust of many voters in a few short months. Word of mouth goes a long way, but voters can't be reached effectively by email. The net's contributions make it possible for me to keep up a full time campaign at five nines while still keeping my day job.

    I decided to run because my current state rep needed to retire. The 15th district needed someone better. I want to show the politicians in Topeka just how much difference a geek can make.

    With your help I got their attention. Keep it up; we plan to show those people the power of technology. Keep checking the blog for updates and new comics.

    -Sean
    sean@seantevis.com