Para Bellum Labs Will Attempt To Make the RNC a Political-Analytics Player

Nerval's Lobster writes "President Obama's 2012 re-election campaign relied on a sophisticated data-analytics platform that allowed organizers and volunteers to precisely target potential donors and voters. The centerpiece of that effort was Project Narwhal, which brought voter information—steadily accumulated since Obama's 2008 campaign—onto a single platform accessible to a growing number of campaign-related apps. The GOP has only a few short years to prepare for the next Presidential election cycle, and the party is scrambling to build an analytics system capable of competing against whatever the Democrats deploy onto the field of battle. To that end, the Republican National Committee (RNC) has launched Para Bellum Labs, modeled after a startup, to produce digital platforms for election analytics and voter engagement. Is this a genuine attempt to infuse the GOP's infrastructure with data science, or merely an attempt to show that the organization hasn't fallen behind the Democratic Party when it comes to analytics? Certainly the "Welcome to Para Bellum Labs" video posted by the RNC gives the impression of a huge office staffed with data scientists and programmers. However, the creation of a muscular digital ecosystem hinges on far more than building a couple of apps. Whatever the GOP rolls out, it'll face a tough opponent in the Democratic opposition, which will almost certainly emulate the robust IT infrastructure that the Obama campaign instituted in 2012 (not to mention Obama's massive voter and donor datasets). From that perspective, Para Bellum Labs might face the toughest job in politics."

Comments

Waste of Time

[Akratist]

While the Republicans probably have a lot of catching up to do in the tech department, they're still clueless as to why they are losing in the political arena, and it has nothing to do with tech. They've long since given up their founding principles of being pro-liberty (remember, most Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act) and internationally cautious and have instead become a hangout for corrupt Beltway extortionists and moonbat crazies in recent decades. When they do offer a political position, it's about 75 percent of what the Democrats offer, so what's the point of supporting them? Finally, dislike of government is a prominent Republican theme, but they've never seen a defense program they didn't like (by and large). All that adds up to a brand which is more damaged than New Coke and would take a cold, hard look in the mirror before it can ever expect to be resurrected, which they are not capable of doing. In ten years, the GOP will have largely gone the way of the Whigs, maybe winning some local elections, but increasingly irrelevant on the national scene.

Re:Waste of Time

[bmajik]

If you write down a list of position statements and don't attach a brand/party to it, and then ask people what they agree/disagree with, republican _positions_ do pretty well.

Independent voters win elections. The politics that win in NYC don't win nationally.

The Republican brand is toxic, because of brand association with people like Akin. And the way you get Akin's and Akin like statements is that when you ask a republican to explain some particular policy/position, they double down with expressing some moral position that seems antiquated at best and offensive more commonly, or they wander off into insanity land.

These things just wreck the brand.

Furthermore, there is a huge struggle for the soul and the future of the republican party. The democrats have huge piles of young energized radicals. The active republicans are almost entirely senior citizens. The young, activist republicans are dominated by Ron Paul supporters -- who are much more socially tolerant than the rank and file, but who want much less government spending than the left can accept.

The party needs to take an active role in managing its brand better. When people like Akin open their mouths, the national party needs to excommunicate them loudly and immediately. "These views are not in keeping with the platforms and goals of the republican party or the republican vision for America". That kind of stuff.

Social conservatives (like myself) need to give up on ever being the majority party again. That ship has sailed. Republicans, liberty advocates, and social conservatives now must settle for the subset of things they want, because getting all of what we want is clearly off the table.

We're still arguing for what the right subset of things to go after is. The Tea Party, to its credit, mostly doesn't do moral/social advocacy or activism, and is mostly about the size of government and adherence to the constitution. That's good stuff.

On economic policy, the modern republican establishment is somewhere between democrat lite and corporo-fascist-enforcers (but, I repeat myself), and purging those elements of the party is going to be painful and take time, and result in lost elections due to infighting. But it has to happen.

I give Rand Paul a lot of credit for taking 80% of what people liked about his dad and making it palatable to 80% of the GOP establishment.

In a modern election, 80% support would be an unheard of landslide. So, say what you will about him, but he's saying the right things about the NSA, about drones, about limits on executive power, and a bunch of other things. He's one of the only republicans that is talking about cutting military spending -- consistently. He's been a huge critic of the TSA from the beginning. He's being wishy-washy on drug policy, but he has said a lot of the right things there as well.

If people could look past the tarnished brand, there's a lot to like about him.

Absent some other factor that is a deal-breaker, I'll support anyone who puts forward legislation to rein in the NSA and to tone down or stop the drug war.

The republicans could adopt these policies, stop talking about gay people and gay marriage, (or better yet, simply say, "we find no provision in the constitution that allows for a federal restriction on same sex marriage. Therefore, in the interest of promoting liberty for all Americans, we support complete government recognition of same sex marriage"), and adopt a "wait and see" approach on Obamacare ("we don't like it, we were against it, but the senate and the executive have rammed it through, so now we're going to focus on other matters while we see how it shakes out").

If they got rid of the things that kill their brand, and focused on the things the democrats aren't touching (drug war, civil liberties, military spending), I think there's some chance.

Re:Waste of Time

[jeffmeden]

Based on polls, Republicans are almost always the minority party, because they advocate positions that benefit the minority and harm the majority. Their electoral victories come from discouraging voting by the majority so that the committed minority can win.

Of course, because they've painted themselves into a corner and cannot imagine that their policies are the reason for their failures, they have to keep trying various tactics to "win" despite public opposition. But until they believe that they need to change, they can't change, and will keep losing.

Though if tactics such as gerrymandering and voter suppression continue to be allowed to succeed, then they'll never change.

When the eligible voter turnout ranges from 35% in off years to 60% in presidential races, no one is winning with a true majority, they are winning by convincing more supporters to turn out than the other side. Winning/losing in the margin hardly creates a mandate by the majority, but that's what has happened for several decades now. Americans just aren't interested enough in either party. The only real solution for that is mandatory voting (and moving election day to a weekend or running it for multiple days), but freedom to be a lazyass is one of our most cherished rights so we would rather not do anything about it.

Re:Waste of Time

[AvitarX]

If you write down a list of position statements and don't attach a brand/party to it, and then ask people what they agree/disagree with, republican _positions_ do pretty well.

This is essentially what Howard Dean said after the 2012 election. He basically said that if you could excise the theocrats (those that legislate based on their morals that come from a religious text) you'd have a party that'd be hard to beat, and that would be a good thing, because the Democrats would have to be better and on their game. Even the manifest destiny branch resonates with a huge amount of the population, it really is the theocratic branch that ruins the party.

Re:Waste of Time

[microbox]

If you write down a list of position statements and don't attach a brand/party to it, and then ask people what they agree/disagree with, republican _positions_ do pretty well.

Citation need. Care to link the study that supports your position? Because the GOP is against the mainstream on all of their hobby-horses. It all depends on how you ask the questions, of course, and cue the volumous motivated reasoning. Remember, the Romney was going to win in a landslide, right? Studies showed it!

RNC still just doesn't get it

[sribe]

They keep babbling about needing to do a better job of getting their message out, and using technology like Obama did to spread their message. Well, bullshit, we heard their message and said "no". No to bigotry against gays, no to the notion that a single cell can be a human being with a soul and consciousness, no to pushing the lie they call "creation science" into the classroom, no to lying to rape victims about the mechanism by which emergency contraception prevents pregnancy, no to all the anti-intellectual garbage that springs from twisted wacko interpretations of the old testament.

But I guess they're not hearing what the voters said, and so it's going to take them using technology better, and suffering another spectacular loss, to start accepting the idea that the problem is the message, not lack of effectiveness in communicating it.

Sigh. You see, I really would like a president who understands the limits of the ability of the government to fix all problems with massive spending, and the negative side effects of massive new spending, and who would strike (in my opinion obviously) a better balance. But as long as the republicans keep nominating candidates who toe the anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-science, anti-intellectual line drawn by the party hard-liners, I will keep voting for the democrats.

Re:RNC still just doesn't get it

[wiggles]

The two parties in this country are what are known as 'big tent' parties. The Republicans have the businesspeople/capitalists, the religious people, and the libertarians, whereas the Democrats have the environmentalists, the immigrants, labor, and socialists.

The goals of those microparties are not always aligned - see the labor vs. environmentalists in cases such as the spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest logging community.

The Democrats have done a far better job of making their microparties play nice with each other. The Republicans, on the other hand, have had a revolt over the last few years where the Libertarians have been fighting with the Religious people, leaving the capitalists looking as the only sane ones in the tent

Re:Do they need it?

[circletimessquare]

The Republican primaries were a gauntlet of Tea Party idiots. So everyone had to steer to the extreme far right to win their support to get on the ballot.

Then, during the general election, they had to steer to the middle. To, you know, actually get votes.

You can't appeal to the fringe and the center at the same time. Appeal to the base of Tea Party nutbags, and middle America won't vote for you, you disgust them. Appeal to middle America, and the Tea Party nutbags won't vote for you, just as you say in your comment. A house divided, yada yada yada

If the Republicans don't fix this problem, they are going to lose again in 2016. And 2020, 2024, etc.

Personally, as a Democrat, I love the Tea Party: sabotaging the Republican Party from within.

There is no bigger friend for Democratic domination of the Presidency (and, with demographic trends, increasingly the House and Senate in the long term, even with Republican gerrymandering) than the Tea Party.

"The GOP has only a few short years to prepare..."

[korbulon]

That statement speaks volumes about what is wrong about the electoral system, and US politics in general. It's all about winning and consolidating power. Few people are really interested in the process of governance. Jesus H. Christ, where are the adults?!

Re:Better information wouldn't help

[circletimessquare]

they didn't ignore the data, they had bad data

the last couple of decades has seen the rise of conservative news sources. which is good for morale. you fudge the truth a little, make things look rosier than they really are, and you galvanize your base

the problem is when you start believing your own bullshit

romney was fed the fudges the conservative echo chamber feeds itself, and was kept in the dark. so they were overconfident

there's a respected solid analyst called nate silver at the new york times, who is very good at forecasting elections with his methods

he called the election early, in september, for obama

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.n...

this analysis was pilloried on the right as a propaganda. even though he was just applying cold hard analysis

http://www.nationalreview.com/...

when in fact, the right was the one creating propaganda, and silver called them out on it:

http://www.businessinsider.com...

the decision makers around romney chose to ignore cold analysis as liberal propaganda. romney had a chance to buckle down and maybe do something with his message in october and maybe eke out a win

but just look at rove on election night: he couldn't believe the news about ohio. because the right wing media echo chamber was operating on its own bullshit, and kneejerk rejecting bad news as liberal propaganda

again, conservative media is great for the morale of the average conservative voter. but when the conservative media is depended upon by the decision makers on the right, the right loses, because decisions based on lies are bad, losing decisions