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Project Orca: How an IT Disaster Destroyed Republicans' Get-Out-The-Vote Effort
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."
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.
Perhaps more people just wanted to vote for Obama.
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.
Letter To Iran
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.
I imagine your average Romney supporter probably looks something like your average Romney voter. Older, white, and not as well educated, especially about technology. Basically your grandfather. Send your grandfather a 60 page PDF and what is he going to do? He's going to print it out.
I read the internet for the articles.
Four times in four days, I had Democratic canvassers knock at my door and pester me about whether I voted yet. I told them yes, I voted absentee, so my choices have already been made, thanks for stopping by, have a great day, good luck, etc.
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.
The margins are alot higher than the Republicans want to admit...this was a first class ass whooping.
I'm always amazed at how *intolerant* leftists can be. I live in a rural "redneck" community and we have very little crime, pollution, racism and unemployment here. Our schools are ranked some of the highest in the nation and just about everyone I know graduated college. Maybe we're not as dumb as the stereotype you submit to says we are.
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.
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.
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.
*thinks back to Hurricane Katrina*
I can imagine that quite well, actually.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
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.
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.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
...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.
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.