Obama’s data advantage

Trying to understand the big deal here. People have been collecting data through focus groups, surveys, etc for...well..forever. Its not like we dont 'know' Obama...and Romney. Most people already have a pretty good feel for who they are going to vote for. And its not like people dont know if they have been out of work for 3 years, or if they cant pay their bills, or if they cant afford to fill their gas tanks.

American said:

What is this, some kind of a joke? Is this what campaigns are coming to when they've run out of ideas and have zip to run on?

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Politics is so sophisticated these days. You have no idea. The models they use are absurdly complex. It's all ultra precision work leveraging huge databases with hundreds of pieces of data about every single voter. How does having a same sex marriage amendment on the ballot affect turnout amongst Asian women between 18 and 25 who make between $25k and $40k a year and rent in this particular voting district... How will voters in this particular city block most likely respond to a message emphasizing the environment vs emphasizing jobs... It's nuts. I have only had access to pretty basic political data sets and none of the models they use for things like presidential elections, but even I could have told you the answers to those questions for any voting district or census block in the US. That level of precision is where they were 15 years ago. Today it's way beyond that. And it does make a huge difference. Is it optimal to spend $3.4 million in Illinois or $2.3 million? How exactly should the spending be distributed between Chicago, suburbs, exurbs, small towns and rural areas? What time slots are going to get the most bang for your buck in this particular small town? What messages are going to resonate most effectively amongst white males between 24 and 35 who don't own a car? Should you pull volunteers from this county and send them to the county next door? How many of them? Should they be knocking doors in advance or getting out the vote on the day of or phone banking or mailing things? There are so many micromanagement decisions to be made in a nation this huge that the amount of data and modelling and analysis to be done it for all practical purposes infinite, and having better data is a massive advantage in that.

And, to be clear, all candidates leverage that sort of data to the maximum possible extent. Carl Rove built his whole empire on doing that very well for example, but it's really teams of dozens of experts working on it for both candidates.

VanceMack said:

Trying to understand the big deal here. People have been collecting data through focus groups, surveys, etc for...well..forever. Its not like we dont 'know' Obama...and Romney. Most people already have a pretty good feel for who they are going to vote for. And its not like people dont know if they have been out of work for 3 years, or if they cant pay their bills, or if they cant afford to fill their gas tanks.

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I'm not so sure we really know either Romney or Obama. Obama is quite different from the man that his detractors keep describing, after all, and Romney has honed the ability to tell listeners what they want to hear to a fine art. It's not easy to define exactly what he does think about any given issue.

Dittohead not! said:

I'm not so sure we really know either Romney or Obama. Obama is quite different from the man that his detractors keep describing, after all, and Romney has honed the ability to tell listeners what they want to hear to a fine art. It's not easy to define exactly what he does think about any given issue.

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Idk... Obama is still the big spending liberal who wants gas prises to go to European levels, raised the deficit to $1.4T and kept it there for 4 years, and has ballooned the debt to $16T, and foolishly thinks tax hikes is the way to fix the problem... that we know he is...

I'd say he's further from the man he describes himself as to his brainless followers than he is from what his detractors are uspet at him for (spending/debt increases, ObamaCare, traditional family values)... He's broken so many promises and changed so many positions that he's morphed into Bush, yet still gets the support of all the people who said "anybody but Bush" over and over again, by taking a sharp turn to the left during the election...

Romney is far more honest in his positions than Obama is, and the only one people really care about is Romney's proven record of creating growth, balancing budgets, and cutting spending... without raising tax rates...

He's got 26 yrs of doing that as a business executive, 3 years of doing it as president of the salt lake city games, and 4 years of doing it as governor of MA... That's far more consistency than any of Obama's policies... ANY...

Dittohead not! said:

I'm not so sure we really know either Romney or Obama. Obama is quite different from the man that his detractors keep describing, after all, and Romney has honed the ability to tell listeners what they want to hear to a fine art. It's not easy to define exactly what he does think about any given issue.

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They are both empty suits and they will both pander to anyone they have to to curry favor and win votes. The ONLY difference between them in my book is that Obama has proven he is not the man for the job. Anyone that whines for 3.5 years about how nothing is ever his fault is a loser. Hillary would be a better candidate than both of these guys. Huntsman...Powell...I can think of a few others. These guys both blow dog. The only thing sadder about the two of them as candidates are the ideological morons that line up to bang their little drums.

VanceMack said:

They are both empty suits and they will both pander to anyone they have to to curry favor and win votes. The ONLY difference between them in my book is that Obama has proven he is not the man for the job. Anyone that whines for 3.5 years about how nothing is ever his fault is a loser. Hillary would be a better candidate than both of these guys. Huntsman...Powell...I can think of a few others. These guys both blow dog. The only thing sadder about the two of them as candidates are the ideological morons that line up to bang their little drums.

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That doesn't say much for the US voters, does it?

The 30% or so who actually do vote, that is.