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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."
It's like the argument put forward by Neal Stephenson in Cryptonomicon - the Allies won WWII because they had the best technology, and the reason they had the best technology was because they were't the biggest assholes.
http://markpasc.org/blog/gems/athena.html
Yeah, I got so sick of the Romney calls that I put an IVR on my home phone line that prompted to press 1 to talk to a human, and hung up if they didn't dial anything, without ringing my phones or letting them leave voicemail. According to my logs that blocked 8 calls (the callerID on each was either unknown, or did point at a known Republican call center) during the 24 hours leading up to the election.
Who distributes a 60 page PDF when the whole rest of the operation is a web site? If they all needed internet access to use the app, why didn't the web application just give each volunteer their customized list?
As always, the group of technomorons at the top tell you it's all digital, then give out a PDF of a scan of a fax.
Can we get rid of the brainless AC posts already? They're all shoot-from-the-lip ignoramuses like this asshole.
I'm an Obamatron, but I can't abide the Huffpost. So I learned about this fiasco from Newser, which linked a conservative web site which linked John Ekdahl's blog. John's a Romney volunteer, and his scathing description of Orca is informed by his day job as a web developer. And the there's Pudge, who helped design Slashdot, and who I presume voted for Romney, unless he considers him too liberal.
So obviously there's no absence of IT talent on the right side of the aisle. What is missing is administrative judgment by Romney himself, who obviously bought some IT snakeoil from somebody, and has generally managed to find total clowns to run his campaign.
People keep telling me about this brilliant guy named Mitt Romney who had a brilliant academic career (MBA and JD from Harvard), did well as a management consultant and equity capitalist, and accomplished great things as Governor of MA, even though the other party controlled the legislature. But I just don't see how that can be the same guy!
Do they even have "the Internets" in trailer parks, yet? I would think it wouldnn't ve economical to lay down the tubes there.
You might be surprised to learn that your average trailer park superintendent may have more experience running a WiFi mesh network than you do.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The Republicans are blaming everyone else but themselves. They've gone as far as to blame blacks for voting for the party that doesn't have candidates that publish books claiming that slavery was a "blessing in disguise."
Romney lost because:
1. He's slimy. He was an Etch-A-Sketch candidate.
2. Rather than court the independents that could have won the election for him, he courted the fringe. He picked that lunatic Ryan for VP.
3. He thought he was using the neocons. Wrong. The neocons used him. They were going to glom on to anyone who won the primaries and anyone paying attention saw this.
4. Because of #1, nobody could trust him, not even his fellow Republicans and certainly not Roger Ailes. Remember how Fox tried to hilight everyone except him before the primaries were done and then had to reluctantly back him after?
5. Not even the Mormons trusted him.
6. He even lost his hometown of Belmont MA, which is full of rich WASPs just like him.
People who know him didn't trust him. It showed.
Combine that with the utter vile rhetoric coming from GOP the last 4 years, is it any surprise that everyone with two brain cells to rub together disliked him far more than they did Obama?
Out of all the candidates that were backed by Roger Ailes' SuperPac, none won. Just look at the clown show that the primaries were, and the GOP picked a clown as a result.
Introspection is required. Until then, it's going to be a long cold winter of discontent for the GOP.
--
BMO
Bullshit. The Republican base are still as dedicated to vengeance and pursuit of theocracy as ever, and still control the House so they can and will still stonewall progress.
The polarization of US is no accident. One cannot sit idly by waiting for ENEMIES to have a group hug. The US is too large to be one country, and as nature takes its course regionalism and the desire for self-determination rear their heads again. (The US has helped break up far smaller countries under UN auspices, but enforces Federal unity at gunpoint.)
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Interesting.
However, the NYTimes exit polling gives a more nuanced version of this. For those with college degrees, a majority voted for Romney. For those with Post Grad degrees, Obama was the overwhelming choice.
Source (scroll down to "Education"
Why is it wrong to hate someone who supports discrimination and racial/socioeconomic hate?
I believe Romney had the economic know-how to help get the economy back on track
First of all, I'm not actually convinced that the economy is in trouble, based on the gross numbers. GDP is back to it's steady climb after the hit it took in 08. What we're actually looking at here isn't a poor economy, but instead general issues with the cost of living for poor and middle class families, dwindling employment, and low upward mobility*.
Those trends started in the 80s. This was also the decade that we made a move away from Keynesian economics, back towards classical economics and the idea of trickle-down economics. Ever since then, the lower and middle class have seen their real income fall, asset ownership decline, and the cost of living increase.
I'm not convinced that the guy saying "More of the same!" actually has the ability to fix those issues.
* AKA the American dream. For many, that dream is dead.