Slashdot Mirror
Political Campaigns Mining Online Data To Target Voters
New submitter nicoles writes with this quote from an AP report:
"The Romney and Obama campaigns are spending heavily on television ads and other traditional tools to convey their messages. But strategists say the most important breakthrough this year is the campaigns' use of online data to raise money, share information and persuade supporters to vote. The practice, known as 'microtargeting,' has been a staple of product marketing. Now it's facing the greatest test of its political impact in the race for the White House. ... The Romney team spent nearly $1 million on digital consulting in April and Obama at least $300,000. ... Campaigns use microtargeting to identify potential supporters or donors using data gleaned from a range of sources, especially their Internet browsing history. A digital profile of each person is then created, allowing the campaigns to find them online and solicit them for money and support."
With the combination of this and search engines trying to tailor results to individual users, can we expect to see even more polarization between supporters of the major parties?
Palm trees and 8
Are you anti-war, pro-bill of rights, and anti-deficit spending? If not then you're not getting any dollars from me Romney or Obama.
But I guess you already knew that from my web surf history. "Running-up 2 trillion in debt is unpatriotic!" Yeah. I agree Candidate Obama. You ran up almost 3x that amount; Romney looks set to do the same.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
For those of us who wish to use social networking and other friendly but intrusive aspects of the web...If you haven't already, you better start scrubbing your visible online information. Reduce your online presence.
A good place to start viewing your publicly available information is http://www.pipl.com/
From there you can decide whether or not it is acceptable information and take the appropriate measures.
"A voter who has indicated an interest in a candidate and then views a video on YouTube is likely to see a 15- or 30-second campaign ad, called a pre-roll, pop up. A box will appear after 5 seconds asking if the person wants to continue viewing the ad. Campaigns only pay for ads the viewer watches through to completion."
I think I've found a way to hurt Romney financially.
Sweet.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I'm definitely not impressed by the efficiency of the Republican campaign. My father, who passed away 3 years ago gets multiple pieces of mail daily from various Republican candidates and fund raising committees.
Some of these I've responded to stating he is deceased. Doesn't do any good, the begging continues.
...why when I looked up 'Kang and Kodos' I got political advertising from both.
Unfortunately, it feels like the vast majority of voters are stuck in their childhood-naivety in believing politics is just unimportant and they should just vote for whoever they "like" the most, turning the presidency into a high-school level popularity contest. At this point, why not just give both candidates an FB page and decide who becomes the next president by whoever has the most likes? This is the type of response massive advertising will bring.
Why can't we make this type of advertising illegal for public offices. Perhaps instead, a consolidated web-based resource should be constructed where each candidate (including individuals running separately from any political party affiliation, and without bias towards those affiliations) is given the same space to identify themselves and their beliefs, and which consolidates resources on the person, their activities within government (both positive and negative), and any interviews/debate type questions they've answered. Also, perhaps some kind of Q&A type service (like a reddit AMA, except less chaotic), so that people can get more information on the stances of the candidates. I envision something sort-of like the "we the people" petition system except much more candid and less worthless, since it entails asking questions to a candidate at large and having popular questions answered sincerely (rather than deferring to media shills and mouth-taped panelists being the only ones that get to ask questions outside of showing up at a town hall and hoping you get called on to ask a question). Most importantly, these things would be immortalized, really showing which candidates hold true to their responses, giving us an ability to objectively score winning candidates on their performance going forward.
Then, armed with something like that, where we can actually read up on all the candidates and find ones we align ourselves most with (and more importantly, who appear to be most beneficial to our country), we then head to the court houses to vote. Not this ass-backwards "see a name on TV, go vote for them because he said something you agree with in the commercial" nonsense. Terrible, the current system is.
Frontline's eight year old documentary called The Persuaders (specifically chapter 5, though it's all quite interesting) showed the pollsters going door to door, but before knocking they got all your data from Axciom or Lexis so they could tell you EXACTLY what you want to hear. Disingenuous? Nahh, it's just politics.
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
Isn't selling your vote illegal?
So is speeding.
So what?
I used to be all concerned with abiding by the law. Then one day I woke up and realized that the law isn't written by people like me. Nor is it written for the benefit of people like me. The law is written by and for the benefit of those who have the ability to meaningfully influence or manipulate the process.
Once I realized that, I decided "fuck the law" - I'm doing whatever I want that serves my interests and that I feel I can get away with - just like our overlords.
Well, I'm not a huge fan of either party, but after carefully considering who I would prefer in the Oval Office, I've decided to vote for our current President. So, I raised $600 for the campaign through a "grassroots" fundraising page. Guess what? Now I get a spam email almost every single day with a 1-click instant donation link. I've already told them I'm tapped out and I won't be raising any further funds for them, but I offered to make calls or pay visits to people if they would simply give me a list of people to contact. They can't be bothered to even respond. I took the further step of opting out of all but the most "important" messages, but that hasn't stopped the flood of spam that I get.
The following email exchange is reflective of the Democrats' spam:
--
From: Bill Clinton
Subject: Meeting you
Date: May 24, 2012 8:49:09 AM PDT
To: Andrew Watters
Reply-To: Rufus Gifford
Andrew --
I've been in President Obama's shoes before -- less than six months to go before an election to let you finish what you started. It was tough enough back then, but this election is going to be tougher.
We're facing a tidal wave of anonymous, unlimited spending. The other side has pledged to throw more than 1 billion dollars into tearing down our president.
It's unprecedented.
Fortunately, so is the grassroots organization you're building.
Pitch in what you can today to strengthen the campaign -- and you'll be automatically entered to join me and President Obama in New York City, with the campaign covering airfare and accommodations.
By clicking here, your saved credit card will be charged immediately:
QUICK DONATE: $56
QUICK DONATE: $35
QUICK DONATE: $50
QUICK DONATE: $100
QUICK DONATE: $250
Or donate another amount.
If our opponent succeeds, so much of what we've fought so hard for will be rolled back. Health care reform -- which many presidents, including me, tried to pass and couldn't -- will be gone. Same goes for the opportunity for millions more Americans to afford to go to college, and a growing economy that works for middle-class families.
Our opponent is actually advertising a more extreme version of the policies that got us in trouble in the first place: policies that will leave us with more debt, weaker regulations on risky investments, and fewer jobs.
All of that's at stake between now and November, but here's why I'm feeling good about our chances: I know people like you have the President's back.
And I can't wait to meet you. I hope you'll give it a shot:
https://donate.barackobama.com/Presidents
Thanks, and good luck,
Bill Clinton
--
From: Andrew Watters
Subject: Re: Meeting you
Date: May 24, 2012 12:44:19 PM PDT
To: Rufus Gifford
Thanks Mr. President, I actually met you once in Hawaii, and several years back I worked for one of your big time fundraisers, ___________,
of _________, CA.
I'm sorry to say that I can't afford to contribute any more money to President Obama's campaign. However, I remain available to assist in the
President's fundraising efforts in some capacity, as indicated in my prior emails including the one attaching my resume. What would be great is
simply a list of people in my area whom I could call or drop in on.
Thank you for your consideration sir.
Andrew Watters
-
No response, despite name-dropping a well-known powerhouse fundraiser who has many pictures of himself with President Clinton from the 1992 campaign, held a fundraiser with candidate Edwards in 2004 at his home, was on the boat with candidate Kerry in the 2004 campaign, etc. In addition to noting that yes, I have actually met Bill Clinton. Despite this, I got another spam email a few days later, a
"Both sides have absolutely no idea how to appeal to the average voter." -> Well, duh! It's hard to talk with a silver spoon in your mouth. Plus the only time they speak with the average voter is while they are running an election campaign; and even then, they ask questions like "You are voting for me, right?" and "What do I have to do to get you to contribute to my fund?"
On a side note, I love how they attempt to fix the difficulties with the Financials industry. Aside from saddling the taxpayer with the bailouts (dumbest move, politically, anywhere, ever), I get to enjoy listening to the cacophony of attempts to regulate or deregulate said industry. We have one party, who wants to blindly remove laws -> "Yes, let us remove the laws which introduced a trade barrier into this market, while we remove the laws which stipulate that selling fraudulent securities to buyers would be punished harshly"; the other party, on the other hand, wants to blindly add laws -> "Yes, let add the law that forbids trading outfits from driving up the price of a stock moments before they put through a client's purchase order, while we add a law that puts the taxpayer on the hook for millions of extremely-risky mortgages." I swear to God, it's like that (spam) scene in Monty Python where no matter what pick off the menu, it has to come with a side order of corruption.
Me: "So, what I'd like is for you to drop the protectionist policies that have unduly enriched the few while thieving the rest of us; I'd also like to have this thieving / fraud nonsense go away."
Party of Purple: "Sure. Sure. We'll do all of that, and we'll also include this law which charges people excessive amounts to buy or sell various positions."
Me: "Umm, no. I want what I asked for, not that extra bit."
Party of Purple: "Yes, we're giving you what you asked for."
Me: "But not that 'charging people excessive amounts' bit, right?"
Party of Purple: "*"
Me: "Hello? I don't want that positions thing to be a part of this legislation."
Party of Purple: "But it has to be. That's the only way it will pass!"
Me: "That's right. I don't want that part to pass into law."
Party of Purple: "But we already wrote it up with that in there."
Me: "Then write a new one."
Party of Purple: "Too late, it already passed into law; we had to make some concessions though, so only the part about taxing people excessively was saved."
Me: "OMFG!"
And that is how our Congress works.
I am John Hurt.
I don't think the unborn babies rights trump the mother's.
It is not which _person_ is more important, it is whether the right to life is more important than the convenience of not being pregnant.
And since you're so concerned with these unborn babies, I assume you support providing pre-natal care for the mothers, and funding for children's health care. You know, those things the GOP always wants to de-fund because they care so much about these kids?
1) I'm not Republican.
2) Conservative people donate 30% more to charity than liberals. Conservatives do charity with their own money, while liberals demand the government to do charity with other people's money and claim to be morally superior to conservatives. That is wrong.
Do I have to write everything explicitly?
An unborn baby has his own unique, individual, _human_ DNA,
and the ability to grown into a child if provided food and oxygen.