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The Data Crunching Prowess of Barack Obama
Hugh Pickens writes "Micah Sifry, co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, writes that Barack Obama may be struggling in the polls and even losing support among his core boosters, but when it comes to the modern mechanics of identifying, connecting with and mobilizing voters, as well as the challenge of integrating voter information with the complex internal workings of a national campaign, Obama's data analysis team is way ahead of the Republican pack. Alone among the major candidates running for president, the Obama campaign not only has a Facebook page with 23 million 'likes' (roughly 10 times the total of all the Republicans running), it has a Facebook app that is scooping up all kinds of juicy facts about his supporters and inside the Obama operation, his staff members are using a powerful social networking tool called NationalField, which enables everyone to share what they are working on. 'The holy grail of data analysis is data harmonization, or master data management,' says Alex Lundry, a Republican data-mining expert at TargetPoint Consulting. 'To have political talking to finance and finance talking to field, and data is flowing back and forth and informing the actions of each other — it sounds easy, but it's incredibly hard to implement.' Sifry writes that if the 2012 election comes down to a battle of inches, where a few percentage points change in turnout in a few key states making all the difference, we may come to see Obama's investment in predictive modelers and data scientists as the key to victory."
Is he's good at campaigning. Nobody has ever disputed that nor has he stopped campaigning since he won. He still sucks at presidenting.
Interesting stuff... seems like a waste, though. Manipulating the masses. Especially the last sentence of the summary, which implies everyone will re-elect Obama and he is already the victor.
He was a community organizer for how many years? Organizing his supporters is about the only thing he knows how to do.
Never mind prosecuting bankers who have openly confessed to committing crimes.
Data mining is the way to go!
this isn't going to be a battle of inches. It's going to be a tidal wave. Obama's poll numbers are very very bad and getting worse. It's not hopeless yet, but damn close
This is the last article on Slashdot I will ever read. News for nerds it is not.
Recently (like 3 days ago) in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand, Neurofocus (neurofocus.com) did a study with EEG caps where they paid people $50 a pop to watch Rick Perry and Barack Obama speeches, among other things, to determine emotional reaction to key words. A good friend of mine did this study for fun and had a lot of interesting things to say about it. Hard to describe succinctly here but it falls right in line with the post. Don't waste a +1 on me, but I do find these studies and analysis interesting to say the least.
I'm not convinced that Facebook likes translate into election victory yet. When the President is re-elected, it will be because he's still far more charismatic and interesting than any current Republican contenders. I don't like his politics but I like him more than Romney, Perry, et al.
The generation that lives and dies by Facebook still doesn't show up at the polls in significant numbers.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Hopefully the same tools used by the government and politicians could also be turned against them by the vigilant people for their freedom and free WILL.
and accountable.
Look at the circular chain of passing the buck on the decision to block the importation of collectible M1 rifles and carbines:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/01/obama-administration-reverses-course-forbids-sale-antique-m-rifles/
Why they can't be transferred to the Civilian Marksmanship Program is inexplicable:
http://www.thecmp.org/
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Just throwing it out there.. Maybe that would help some as well.
First I thought that going by the "Likes" would be skewed by International users who like Barack Obama, but if you scrape the User Data, and discard everyone who do not have "United States" in their profile (as their 'like's don't count as they don't get to vote), there is a higher degree of confidence in that data.
The data collectors will also have to do some community surveys to see which demographics actually use Facebook for 'liking' their political candidates because some communities are more "connected" than others and they will need to adjust accordingly. eg: If only one republican for every two democrats are likely to put a like on Facebook, then the republican likes get more weight.
Pretty scary stuff what can be worked out from scraping Facebook data. This is the sort of uses that Privacy Experts have been warning about. One person who thinks it's 'Cool' to like Barack Obama on Facebook is someone else's campaign data.
But all the Republicans are even worse. Between religious "We don't need any of that eddecation except for the Bible" nutcases, "USA! USA!" wackos, and the other crazies who complain all day about government spending but still get the federal government to spend huge money on their OWN interests, there isn't really anyone good out there.
Posting anonymously because most Slashdotters are Republican, are angry, and have mod points.
That's what Karl Rove did for decades. There's a classic picture of Karl Rove with a 12" reel of computer tape. He was able to turn demographic and polling data into information on how, when, and where to tell people what they wanted to hear.
Disclaimer: I am NOT choosing sides in this post.
The notion that the Obama team is the only one in the prospective 2012 race to understand data mining and acting on numbers is pretty shallow. Rick Perry has a well documented (and apparently very well run) data mining team that he has used in the past and would no doubt use again in a presidential bid... More info here: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/rick-perrys-scientific-campaign-method/ and here: http://www.thevictorylab.com/ and in this E-book: http://www.amazon.com/Rick-Perry-His-Eggheads-ebook/dp/B005HE8ED4
Which other candidate is better? All the Republicans want to shove their religion down our throats, and increase huge government spending even while complaining about how the Democrats want to increase huge goverment spending.
Or it could be 2:1 Republicans connected to Democrats, I'm not saying that the republican supporters are less connected than democrats, it was just an example!
Can this farce of a political system get any worse?
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Rick Perry's campaign, for instance, is well-known for using social-science methods to rigorously test various campaign tools, including controlled experiments on what actually worked and what didn't.
As, as long as we're talking about Perry, you know that "Perry cut firefighters budgets" story that went around a month ago? It's not true. The Texas legislature authorized, and Perry signed, an 80% increase in wildfire fighting and prevention funding for the 2012-2013 biennium.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
...but he will still not get re-elected.
If you think the people who run the business of government are more concerned with justice and progress than lining their own pockets, then you haven't been paying attention for the last 2000 years. Good luck on finding a "leader" who puts you before their own fortune!
Obama attacks banks while raking in Wall Street dough
Despite his rhetorical attacks on Wall Street, a study by the Sunlight Foundation’s Influence Project shows that President Barack Obama has received more money from Wall Street than any other politician over the past 20 years, including former President George W. Bush.
In 2008, Wall Street’s largesse accounted for 20 percent of Obama’s total take, according to Reuters.
HOPENCHANGE!!!!!
How do you know if a candidate is "liked" or "+1" because they'll vote for them in the election, or because they'll be easy to beat?
The Dali Lama has "recently" joined G+ and I've circled and +1'd him, because he is one of the very few "world leaders" I actually respect. That is an entirely different relationship from me +1'ing Palin because I think she is the most easy to beat out of the R field; +1 for being a humorous caricature in her field.
I suppose you could analyze my other +1s to figure out I don't want to throw my vote away on a D or R, and I'm gonna vote straight LP (unless RP is somehow on the ballot for the R in which case I'd hold my nose only a little tiny bit and vote for him). So maybe that data would show LP supporters think the best way for the R to lose is to put up Palin (or her cronies), or if they want LP supporters maybe they need a party plank that if they win RP will be the next (last?) chairman of the Fed. That might be actionable data, might not.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Now, if he hadn't spent the last 2.5 years largely doing exactly the opposite of what he campaigned on, angering his base to no end, he might be able to make better use of all of that data management. No amount of carefully worded campaign e-mails are going to convince me to vote for a President who has normalized extra-judicial assassinations of American citizens by the CIA.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
With OWS now standing up as the leftist version of the TEA party, there are people speculating that if Romney wins the GOP nomination there could be 4 major candidates in 2012: Romney, Obama, TEA nutjob, OWS nutjob.
Americans on both sides of the aisle will be faced with hard and soft versions of what they like. We may talk hard; but when it comes to actually putting somebody in charge I think most of us prefer soft.
Since the "hard" candidates would be most likely be breakaways from the major parties, party loyalty will be tested.
That's my crazy ass prediction. It's as good as anybody elses.
Interesting replies considering nobody posting them has the slightest clue. Think back to the last time this country had a serious recession, gas prices through the roof (even rationing) and unemployment issues very similar to now. What happened? We elected Ronald Reagan. His first order of biz was to cut government spending. Yes, CUT spending. Guess what, it worked. You still want to vote for the poor excuse for a turd we have in the White House now ? Jeeze, he is a complete and utter failure, unless the devaluation of this country is what your agenda is, then absolutely, he is a resounding success. I say it's time to stop the little experiment and throw this clown out on his ass and elect someone who might actually have something more concrete than "Change" Funny, he did that right come to think of it... All anyone has now from their paycheck or retirement account now is a little "change".
Not surprising seeing that Republicans don't believe in Science. They just need faith to get the votes.
dont count because you have to "like" something to post on their wall. I "like" his page, but only in that I have to to go there and argue with their supporters. I dont know how many other people do the same.
Another Slashvertisement for CLOSED SORES software to help Obama bin Baden.
Yours In Marxism,
Kilgore Trout
Obama's performance has been pretty lackluster. So much for Hope and Change, huh?
But the modern Republican party and the Tea Party (who are basically the Totalitarian Christian Theocracy party these days) scare the fucking shit out of me. HOW DO YOU PEOPLE EVEN CONSIDER VOTING FOR THEM!?
Whatever Obama's flaws, he's *gotta* be better than someone who literally prays for rain while denying climate change, or someone who believes gay marriage is the #1 issue to affect America in the next 30 years, or someone who was so homophobic that the gay community named a mixture of semen and faeces, a by-product of improperly performed anal sex, after him.
How does this... how is... I don't even...
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
I used to (rather recently) work as a software developer for a company that sold IT data services exclusively to Republican campaigns. The company was owned by some nationally-known Republican activists. The rank-and-file within the company did not necessarily care about politics, but the management mostly did.
The company easily could have developed and offered this kind of data services to its customers. The IT talent was there, and the developers has a rather good idea of how things could be done. The problem was that the management simply would not listen to the developers. All we seemed to get done was to have idea after idea shot down because the estimated hours were too high (even though most of the developers were full-time, so it's not like most of the expenditures were on contractor hours). Pretty much any estimate that came in over 80 hours of development time for any feature meant that the feature got shot down. We would keep asking management what they wanted the products to look like by the 2011 election season and by the 2012 election season, and there was just no clear vision at all. Also, even though top management had budgeted for more developer help, the company wasn't willing to do what it took to get competent developers in the door, so we had at least one open developer position most of the time I was there. We would have candidate after candidate come in from the same recruiter (because of some pre-existing relationship with IT management), supposedly with the skills we needed, but realistically who couldn't code their way out of a paper bag when we gave them a very basic test to complete.
The stupid hour estimates got so pervasive that management implemented a bonus plan that rewarded meeting your own estimates. So, basically, it just rewarded whomever could come up with the highest estimate while keeping a straight face. It also helped the process of driving morale into the ground. Anyone who stayed did so because of external circumstances keeping them in the job.
Note that we weren't billing hourly for (most of) these projects. They were part of a subscription product being sold.
Extreme cheapness -- to the point of neglecting the mission of the company -- plus managerial incompetence really hurt the Republican cause. I'm fine with that as a citizen, but it's really demoralizing to see what a product could be and not be able to implement it.
It's got computers. It's got Democrats. It's got Republicans. It's got Facebook and datamining. It's got high priced consultants of dubious worth.
What else does it need?
Now we just have to figure out how there can be huge flame ridden disagreements about it.
Oh wait. It's already started.
And yet, the streets are full of protesters. If anything, people today have less hope than they did in 2008. Nothing changed, and he's going to have to run on that record.
At this point it's abundantly clear that if you vote for either major party, you are throwing your vote away. Vote third party or stay home.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
He has a Facebook page! That is just absofuckinglutely bleeding edge, there, baby!
I look forward to our precise and data analyzed to death future! Yay!
The "debates" are now hosted by the parties themselves instead of the League of Women Voters.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_debates
So they're nothing more than a forum for the candidates to issue sound bites now.
Because facebook "Likes" is a good polling mechanic... especially when those likes could have been bade 4 years ago, the people may not remember "liking it" or even log into their facebook account anymore.
If you vote for a third party, all you're doing is making it more likely that the candidate who is closest to your views will lose.
At least it will be that way with the current voting system in most states.
FIRST you have to change the voting rules so that a candidate you want to endorse has a chance of actually winning the election.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Voting_system
Start locally by improving the voting system in your district / state.
His first order of biz was to cut government spending.
Look, I can be some what pro-republican. (IE that U-2 story about Bush? To me it was fairly obvious that story was made up and didn't actually happen.) Anyway I don't know where you got your data but I just checked Wikipedia on it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Us_budget#Federal_budget_data Let's see, spending went up under Reagan. Ok, if you compare against GDP it went down from 83 to 84 and again from 85 through the rest of his term. However the first order of business definitely wasn't to cut spending and overall spending went up. Of course I'm posting anonymous because you know the Slashdot moderators, say anything not derogatory toward W and they basically froth at the mouth.
Well, we got hope and change. Just as promised. As a matter of fact that is the NUMBER 1 ISSUE with me. I HOPE they CHANGE out this administration as soon as possible.
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
"...the Obama campaign not only has a Facebook page with 23 million 'likes..."
Hmm. 23 mil facebookers mainly comprised of either: young and inexperienced who pay no taxes or constituents who voted for Obama because of race. Lovely, just frickin lovely. Well, it's been a nice 200 year run and we are now in decline.
So long and thanks for all the fish!
Either the economy improves drammatically over the next 12 months or so, or Pres Obama will lose by a wide margin. The IT infrastructure of his campaign is irrelevant.
Somewhat off-topic, but not that much.
All this jazz -- "To have political talking to finance and finance talking to field..." is a waste of time. A very loud minority are fed up with the way our so-called capitalist system works, with the fact that there are 5 "financial service industry" lobbyists for every official in Congress, with the ongoing fraud committed by the never-to-be-audited private Federal Reserve, and on and on. This ain't Capitalism anymore than Communism is Buddhism.
People like me, we don't buy the skewed and enhanced version of Edward Bernays's manifesto "Propaganda" IRL, but we do buy into critical thinking: For ourselves, that is. Democratic Pundits and alleged Experts tell us "This is true!", then Republican Pundits and Experts voice an opposing set of purported facts, while equally Dems and Repubs are full of shit. I am quite certain that factual totality ranks #1 in a federal politician's repertoire less than 1% of the time.
People I talk to are utterly and perfectly sick of BS calls to action. "Change we can believe in!" My hairy, copywriting ass. There are enough people sick of faux capitalism that - if we make our reasonable arguments heard - calls for *honest* action will result in tangible change for the better. Many of "We the People" voted for our current President because of his promises. We know now that he was full of it due to his actions after election. Kinda like several Presidents before him - just one lie after another. The President ain't the leader of America, rather obviously. The Office of the President is that of a figurehead, not the Binding Word of an English King or Queen.
"...we may come to see Obama's investment in predictive modelers and data scientists as the key to victory."
Sorry, but no. The unobtrusive, quiet folk have had enough of electing the Left and Right Wings of the same authoritarian Bird.
Trained fowl fly into cages. Free birds fly out of them. /inebriated rant
Fuck a cage.
IDK about you people, but when I listen to folks, I hear that the spirit of 1776 ain't that far off.
between campaigning and leading. He is very good at promising something yet incredibly good at not delivering it and then brushing off complaints.
Considering all he promised about protecting our rights and the rights of the combatants we took into custody in the War on Terror why should I believe anything that passes his lips? He is worse than Bush, he has doubled down on nearly every bad part of the Patriot Act that Bush used, hell he used Drones to kill American citizens overseas. And the press remains silent.
If only to be have an active press again, one that regularly chases the Administration, this guy has got to go. I want no more Presidencies where the Press acts as if it is part of the Administration.
We would have investigations in Congress over the drone killing if it were Bush, if not full press stories about how abusive it is of the Office. Let alone Solyndra and Fast and Furious.
His real self will surface when he has no further campaigns to run, meaning if he wins or loses we will finally see what he will do.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Judging by the website of this "Personal Democracy Forum", one would not expect an objective assessment of anything having to do with the election. http://personaldemocracy.com/advocacy/advocacy
It's just a matter of picking my poison. If I vote left, I get some jackass preaching about saving mother earth and we're all in some syrupy Star Wars Force binding us all together, so I have to give up my money in the name of the cause and join in the mission to get rid of the evil right. If I vote right, I get some jackass preaching about saving culture and we're all god's children, so I have to give up my money in the name of the cause and join in the mission to get rid of the evil left.
This is my sig.
> it has a Facebook app that is scooping up all kinds of juicy facts about his supporters and inside the Obama operation, his staff members are using a powerful social networking tool called NationalField, which enables everyone to share what they are working on.
Does anyone else find this a little creepy?
In any case, I think the team may be making an assumption that will skew the numbers. They're not really measuring Obama supporters, they're measuring Obama supporters who are stupid enough to enter the security scorpion pit that is Facebook apps. This has to be a smaller, less technically minded subset of Obama's actual supporters.
Doesn't it?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Speaking of "social-science methods", I think he is attempting some kind of vulnerability exploit on the brains of his audience:
"I think Americans just don’t know sometimes which Mitt Romney they’re dealing with. Is it the Mitt Romney that was on the side of against the Second Amendment before he was for the Second Amendment? Was it — was before he was before the social programs, from the standpoint of he was for standing up for Roe v. Wade before he was against Roe v. Wade? He was for Race to the Top, he’s for Obamacare, and now he’s against it. I mean, we’ll wait until tomorrow and — and — and see which Mitt Romney we’re really talking to tonight"
Ouch, I think I need to go read some Bush-isms to recovery from that . . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
The right wing controls the fraudulent voting machine code bases. And this time around, there will be a bumper crop of uniformed, no-neck white guys outside the polling stations, pretending to be part of the official Security Theater so as to suppress all minority voters - excepting those to whom they've already given the wrong election date (and location).
Throwing free elections: doing The Lords' work.
You know, that whole Pledge of Allegiance thing? Back before they banned it from schools of course.
That was the mantra for a long time. However, polling strongly indicates that enough people currently hold a picture in their head of an obstructionist republican party causing the crappy economy to persist.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The below is perfect for making bookmarks and placing in store windows:
http://disinfo.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Screen-shot-2010-11-17-at-10.30.55-AM.png
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6164/6225849088_4fd0c3e282_b.jpg
Forgot to mention his statement on the pre-decided guilt of Bradley Manning, whom the commander-in-chief has illegally kept in jail when he is supposed to be granted a speedy courts-martial. And negative, Obama, the banksters did break the law: many millions of times over in filing millions of false affidavits (that equals millions of felonies) and falsely filing wrongful IRS reports (in violation of tax-exempt REMIC status), and millions of violations of Article 3 of the Uniform Commerical Code.
Am I the only one who read "Micah Sifry" as "Micah Stirfry?
Where's my lunch?
So you're saying we have a president now who really is just a full-time campaigner?
How...wonderful?
-Styopa
What, nobody has mentioned Neal Stephenson's Interface, yet. A presidential candidate is interfaced with an instant polling system...
Non-Linux Penguins ?
I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the corporate states of America.
And to the stockholders, for which they stand,
one nation, under Mammon, socially divisible,
with liberty and justice for some.
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
We complain that politicians lie, but refuse to elect any of them that tell the truth. Go figure!
Obama is a killbot. Who gives a shit about his technical prowess? He's just using it against the rest of us... He already has effectively put the entire civil rights issue to sleep. I guess he did something during his term. He is indeed worse than Bush.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Let's be real - anyone who believes in any religion whatsoever is damaged goods. Mormon, Christian, Muslim, Jews, Buddhists, Hindu, Taoists, et al - all mentally deficient in some respects because each and every one of them is wrong in some way.
Problem is, that's all we have to deal with. So we must settle for those who can separate their (necessarily bent) religious beliefs from their political decisions.
You have got to be kidding me...if our wonderful President is so keen on data crunching, how could he not figure out that his "stimulus" wasn't working and we needed a new approach (even though it is the same crap, different election) and a new bill? How could he not have noticed his plummeting approval numbers and make adjustments to serve the interests of the people he is supposed to be supporting? I'll tell you why. Because Mr. Obama is only worried about one thing and that is his prestigious job title. While in Congress, he abused the ability to vote "present" in order to walk down the middle of the isle of his voter base. He has continually pointed fingers at other people's actions while remaining almost completely inactive since Congress abused its majority to pass the Obamacare elephant that is about to sit on the back of this fragile economy. In fact, all while he has been "pushing" Republicans to take action on the list of ideas he calls a job bill, it has been Harry Reid who is stalling and has continued to use parliamentary procedure reindeer games to stop progress. And I will also tell you why I am right about this...for the past two and a half years we have heard NOTHING but how we are in such a terrible situation and who we should be blaming. Whether this country is falling apart because rich people don't pay enough taxes or because Wall Street steals money, the liberal argument is completely mute because WE HAVE BEEN SPENDING THE MONEY WE DON'T HAVE ANYWAYS!!!!!!!!!! That's right. Even though he doesn't have the money and can tell you exactly why, Mr. Obama has spent nearly 5 TRILLION dollars that we don't have and guess what? WE STILL HAVE THE PROBLEMS INCREASED SPENDING IS PROMISED TO FIX. Period. End of story. You cannot deny that. Liberalism as it stands today does not work and now ALL Ahttp://politics.slashdot.org/story/11/10/10/1530246/The-Data-Crunching-Prowess-of-Barack-Obama?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed#mericans are on the hook for this money which means American Liberalism has done nothing but grow the lower class, shrink the upper class, and threatens to eliminate the middle class all because our President is using data crunching to get reelected rather than using common sense to help us like he so eloquently promised less than 36 months ago.
I wouldn’t and can’t believe anything this poor excuse of a President of which has nothing to offer America except Socialism and he tells a Lie every time he opens his mouth. He had rather clime a mountain and lie than to stand flatfooted on level ground and tell the truth. He has betrayed aver promise he made during his campaign run for President and you suckers believe him still, GET A GRIP ON REALITY.
Today's Computer-Age Elections Are Won and Lost Inside the Black-Boxes that record and count the votes.
Whoever owns and controls the Black-Boxes into which one's votes go, who can manipulate how the votes come out of the box, however the voters voted them in, controls the election.
Who will win any election in the present day United States is decided by the owners/controllers of the Black-Box "Voting Machines".
When we cast our votes we just give them our markers to move where they want to move them.
It is comparable to what is done with corporate investment share proxy-voting, where players with interests "buy" borrowed, and "borrowed" shares held for owners by brokers, in street-accounts. The temporary owners, being the "current owners" of what they borrowed have the voting rights, which they may vote. They may then sell the shares, or "shares" (virtual shares, aka "naked" shares) back to the unknowing owners, who never know their votes on their shares were mooted and never counted.
I wish he had used his godlike data management skills to fix the economy. I guess some things are more important.
Alone among the major candidates running for president, the Obama campaign not only has a Facebook page with 23 million 'likes' (roughly 10 times the total of all the Republicans running), it has a Facebook app that is scooping up all kinds of juicy facts about his supporters and inside the Obama operation, his staff members are using a powerful social networking tool called NationalField,
I read that to mean that Republicans are 10x smarter than Obama supporters :)
Let me think now, who are some of history's heads of state that had excellent propaganda machines, owned the press and sowed hatred of people for being successful in business?
JoeR
...he STILL won't allow his original paper-copy birth certificate to be examined for authenticity (admitted to exist by both himself and state authorities); but allows digital copies (some made OBVIOUSLY badly) to circulate.
1) contention
2) ???
3) @$$h0le