Organizing For Action is the key to the Progressive machine and Obama’s 2012 re-election. Their tactics of data-mining and behavioral analysis made the difference in the election. The Republican Party has not yet grasped the nature of what they are up against. Some young Conservative techies seek to create an answer to OFA.
Silicon Valley and the GOP — together at last?
That may seem like a peculiar proposition given all the public soul-searching and dirge-singing since Election Day over the digital failure of Republicans in modern campaigning.
But a blast of cheerful California sunshine may be starting to light the way in the form of an underground gang of young, conservative hackers in the Valley assembling via a communal Google Document to brainstorm about what they can do to save the party from the clutches of tech-phobic leaders.
“There’s this myth that there aren’t any Republicans out here who are willing to drop everything to help the way Democratic hackers have,” said Aaron Ginn, who with Garrett Johnson have dubbed their nascent brain trust the Republican Stealth Mob. “We’re out here, and we want to help.”
[....]What makes this gang different from the myriad of existing GOP digital strategy firms with hanging shingles in Washington is that the Silicon Valley bunch isn’t in it for the money and they’re not as interested in political gamesmanship as they are in creating useful and usable campaign tools. They look upon the much-vaunted Obama tech team not with contempt but with admiration over its impressive sites, sleek apps and intuitive systems.
[....]
Troubles began almost immediately. He learned that the campaign’s online home, MittRomney.com, was built on an archaic architecture that required the entire site to be updated every time most changes were made. That made the site more prone to crashing and made rapid response more cumbersome, as evidenced by the lag of days before the front of the site touted Romney’s triumph in the first presidential debate.
He said his offer to re-code the site was turned down. He had been hired to manage and grow something called MyMitt, a little-used program intended to help rank-and-file volunteers raise money. MyMitt was clunky and unpleasant, Ginn said, so he laid out an $80,000 proposal to bring in four Republican computer engineers to build something new. The campaign at first was encouraging but then decided after a week to nix it.
These Conservative techies ran up against the Consultant Class. Too many GOP Consultants, like the despicable Karl Rove, refuse to realize the nature of what they are up against. I can not emphasize too much that OFA is the most formidable electoral machine ever assembled.
It’s not the Economy or Demographics , it’s Technology stupid!
Tags: OFA
From your keyboard to God’s ears, Rodan. Great post!
The more I read about the Mainstream GOP (Grand Old Palookas), the more I shake my head at their idiocy. I swear to god that they WANT to be stuck in the past and looking forward is more looking behind. Besides, $80k to redesign and build an app? That’s peanuts!
I’ll let CW dance on this one -- I’m done.
Well tech is certainly a necessary tool, but the obvious obstacle here is the insularity of the Romney campaign.
Hubby found this out first hand. He was asked to come onboard as an unpaid consultant. Trust me, Romney’s reputation in the agricultural community is less than sterling.
Well, the people already onboard didn’t want to hear anything that threatened their positions so -- like these Silicon Valley guys and so many others, Hubby was just quietly ignored.
Rove is a loser.
In my cynical old age, I have strongly reduced my willingness to assume the best intentions of these operatives. I would like to see evidence of Rove not being out for Rove and simply protecting his turf and funding.
And what the hell happened to that app ORCA?
30 yrs in software development and my guess is this: their testing sucked. Testing for expected conditions is the norm. But there is seldom a culture of TRYING TO BREAK THE DAMN THING. If you don’t try to break it, you’re screwed when it does break. And it always does.
I gotta run -- at least for awhile
@ eaglesoars:
The trouble of testing something to break it is that most people are too intelligent in the testing phase. It takes a true idiot to properly break something. Unfortunately you only run across them in the real world, and they will do things that even most intelligent people fail to think of. Not to mention their documentation sucks on how they broke it.
There’s no one trick fix to the problem the GOP has. Message, Digital Media, street walking,stopping fraud, and the will to actually fight to win all are needed.
Anyone telling you that they have the answer, usually has a narrow view point. Although I’m sure my leaving the GOP (I’m old, white and somewhat grumpy) should help in their quest!
@ Tanker:
Message? Are you insane? That’s old-fashioned, bitter old man thinking. Get hip, get with it.
@ eaglesoars:
You are right. The Consultant Class is scared of others impeeding on their turf. That needs to change 1st.
PaladinPhil wrote:
Actually all you need to do is give it to a soldier! If it can be broken, hacked or worked around for ease, a soldier can and will do it.
@ Tanker:
You can not address anything until the Techological infrastructure is built. All the other tactics like messaging and rebranding will not amount to a hill of beans until you have a cyber/digital appartus like OFA.
Mike C. wrote:
Without technology, no one will hear your message. Running ads and sending dierct mail is a waste in today’s information age. Online ads, Facebook and Twitter feeds are more effective.
@ citizen_q:
Rove only cares about a paycheck. The GOP losing is perfect for Rove. He gets to rule over a shrinking Party.
Rodan wrote:
As this post points out, the digital fix can’t be done without changing attitudes. Good luck with that!
The GOP had better wake the hell up and understand the nature of the enemy. They’re playing for keeps.
Obama donor in process of buying up and ‘destroying’ America’s top pro-gun media outlets
@ huckfunn:
That is another part of the machine.
@ Tanker:
The Consultant Class loves their little fiefdom. They do not mind losing.
Rodan wrote:
Indeed! Control of the media and academia.That’s most of the game right there.
Rodan wrote:
Without a message, it doen’t matter if you have Vorlon technology. Republicans have run two, or even 3 candidates in a row that had no real message. How’d that work out for you?
huckfunn wrote:
Apropos of “control,” I am re-posting this from the bottom of the Andrew Sullivan thread:
@ Mike C.:
Why are you against the GOP countering OFA?
@ huckfunn:
OFA is the icing on the cake for the Progressive machine. It was the missing piece to their control over the media and academia. Now with Tecghnology, Media, Academia and Entertainment the Left has laid the foundation for a One party Nation.
@ buzzsawmonkey:
Great point. When the morlocks own academia and the media, they also control the language. Therefore they have the ability to define the issues and drive their agenda.
@ huckfunn:
Thank you.
I have said, many times, that the gay-rights movement is one of the biggest threats to the First Amendment—not only because it opposes religious freedom but because it has already hollowed out First Amendment guarantees of free speech by creating and popularizing terminology and, consequently (and more perniciously), habits of thought which narrow the bounds of speech and what it is acceptable to say.
A legal guarantee such as is contained in the First Amendment is worthless if everyone self-censors.
Rodan wrote:
Never said I was. I just think you’re sweating the small stuff and ignoring the big picture. If you don’t focus on getting a clear, winning message out there, how you get it out is irrelevant. The last presidential candidate that ran with a clear message was Barack Obama in 2008. The last one before that was Ronald Reagan. If the Republicans cannot find a candidate with a clear message next time out, they’re going to lose. It’s just that simple.
@ Mike C.:
No, its the other way around. You need infrastructure to get your messaage out.
YES, the candidate matters and I agree with you. But you need the technolgy to spread it.
Obama had different messages for different audiences. The common theme was “Republicans hate you and I will protect you from them”. He was able to create this message due to OFA. OFA targetted different demogrphaics, looked up derogatory statements by Republicans about that group and then ran ads with those statements. It worked!
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
PC is effectively an end run around First amendment protections as you ably stated. Forgive my taking the liberty of pasting a reply from the previous threadis mortis.
We’re all knuckle-dragging racists, homophobes, sexists, etc. unless otherwise specified and the specification, itself, admits that the aforementioned prejudices are the rule rather than the exception.
Yep, we lost the language some time ago…….
@ MacDuff:
OFA is just the icing on the cake!
I was a project ORCA volunteer for the Romney Campaign, which had promise. The problem was that no where in the entire project did anyone running it show the slightest competence. This is something that can be corrected within the next couple of years, so please for the Love of God, keep the faith!
There are many areas where we have taken habitually to getting our teeth kicked in, and this one is important I’ll grant you, but so is our problem with allowing them to cheat freely, their early voting nonsense kills us every time, the negative campaigning works, and our refusal to take them on costs us more than the data mining, those single issue purity tests of ours designed to banish the unworthy from the party are catching up to us, and let’s not forget the practice of electing palookas, who promise us a good fight and then dive like pirates searching for buried treasure.
No, Obama’s main message was “I’m black!” That’s it. He didn’t have a new message last year. In my lifetime, JFK had a message. LBJ’s message was “I’ll continue with JFK.” Nixon’s message was “I’m not LBJ.” Carter’s message was “I had nothing to do with Nixon.” Reagan actually had a message. GHWB’s message was “I’ll be like Reagan.” Clinton’s message was “I won’t be like GHWB.” GWB didn’t really have a message, either, but he was lucky enough to run against Al Gore and John Kerry. John McCain, no message; Mitt Romney, no message. The next Republican up with no message will be a loser as well unless TSHTF before the election. Which it might, I’ll grant you.
PaladinPhil wrote:
Oh god ain’t that the truth! I used to tell my teams “The only thing idiot-proof about our gorgeous system is that someday some idiot is going to come along and prove us wrong”.
MacDuff wrote:
infanticide is called ‘choice’
It’s not just the gays, buzz.
Rodan wrote:
OFA is an extrapolitical honest-to-God threat to the Republic.
MacDuff wrote:
“Regaining the language” is a multi-level task which must be pursued through the schools and the media as well as through politics—but it is very, very necessary.
In this tastes great/less filling debate between Mike and Rodan, it is necessary to point out that the needs for a clear message and a powerful system/network to deliver it are complementary, not mutually exclusive—and both need to be able to run simultaneously, in sync, and also semi-independently.
The mere ubiquity of the Obama message machine, grinding non-stop, is very effective. Back during the 2008 campaign, while still standing in the Yertle sludge, I noted that Obama’s graphics were both excellent and numerous. There were hundreds, if not indeed thousands, of well-designed bumper stickers and posters, and the campaign made them available all over the place. McCain’s graphics were few, clunky, ugly, and hard to get hold of—lots of people were complaining of the long waits to merely get lawn signs or bumper stickers from the campaign. It is not in any way the only reason McCain lost, but it is certainly one of them—and it is a lesson that conservatives have not yet learned.
A high-tech counter to OFA is certainly necessary—but a low-tech counter is equally important. The GOP, or some conservative group that does not have its marketing sense stuck up its ass, needs to start papering the country as of last week with coordinated, well-designed low-tech material to “sell” the conservative message.
These low-tech things can be an effective means of framing the debate, which is how the language can be recaptured.
@ Mike C.:
You are wrong and that is why we lost. Republicans do not understand what OFA did.
You are spot on there! The next Republican needs to stand for something!
eaglesoars wrote:
True. But credit where credit is due; the gay-rights movement, by creating and popularizing the term “hate speech,” and by equating speech with physical violence, has done a great deal by itself.
I haven’t even addressed the lies inherent in the term “marriage equality,” nor in the movement’s new phrase “respect for marriage,” which it is starting to popularize. The latter is particularly ironic since the destruction of marriage was openly called for by the post-Stonewall gay-rights movement, and the movement has never been called upon to explain or justify its change in position on marriage from must-destroy to must-have.
@ buzzsawmonkey:
Hey, do you still have that link from PJMedia that explained what OFA did?
@ MacDuff:
I will be emailing later from my new email. I am getting off Google.
This is scarier than I am saying on the blog.
these guys have got a good idea,
OFA is robust to say the least , so this is just a
start, a good start.
The more I read about OFA the more scared I get. I might have stepped on shit here.
OFA might be the tip of the iceberg.
@ RIX:
The sad part is the GOP Consultant class is more concerned about protecting their fiefs than winning.
Right, it’s all about their fees & Media face time.
Rodan wrote:
Unfortunately not. It was in the Tatler sub-site, but I can’t recall who wrote it, and I don’t really have the time to try and search the site for it now.
@ Rodan:
If you can remember when/in which thread I posted the link here—it was maybe a week, week and a half ago, I think—that might be faster than searching PJM.
@ buzzsawmonkey:
OK, I’ll just look up your comments. That article was the one that got me looking into this.
@ RIX:
Republican Consultants only want a check. Democrat Consultants believe in their cause. That’s why they win.
There’s a search window on the upper right of the tatler site. Just enter ‘OFA’. Quite a few articles are returned
This it Rodan?
Rodan wrote:
Looks like Al Qaeda took your advice:
@ Rodan:
I’ve been saying that they don’t care if they win or not, so long as they get the invitations to the right parties and all that goes along with that. And they don’t care about passing an agenda, either. The Republicans have stood for nothing for the last 20 years. They were given power in 1994, and did nothing substantive with it. And they got worse as time went along. By 2006 it was hard to tell where Republican ended and Democrat began.
@ Tanker:
No, it was a PDF that detailed how OFA operates in tersm of data-mining.
@ Tanker:
No, that one is much more recent. There was a big article on OFA a week or three ago in the Tatler which discussed in detail how Obama’s people had done targeted marketing down to individual households in order to tailor their message.
Iron Fist wrote:
You are 100% right. Look at how these Conservative Techies were TURNED down! The Consultant Class is only in it for a paycheck and invitations to the right parties.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
Was it the one about taking Texas Blue?
Tanker wrote:
I think it was titled “How They Did It—Inside OFA,” or something of the sort. It was a commentary with a lengthy series of PDFs showing the papers and plans and organizing memos that had been used to build the campaign, and which the new OFA also planned to use.
That sounds right.
Rodan wrote:
“Checks and balances? Write me a check for my bank balance.”
@ buzzsawmonkey:
Sad but true.
Texas looks to change the course of History.
https://secure.piryx.com/donate/MuvqSNzw/tedcruz/texas_independence
O/T The liberal media’s ugliness is on display so vividly when one of their own strays, and mayhap tells the truth rather then their spoon-fed talking points.
Here from
currental-jazerra tv.Michael Hastings: “There Are People Waiting For Woodward To Die So They Can Dish Stuff On Him“
OT: Word in the street is that Hugo Chavez is dead.
Who will Cindy Sheehan sleep with now?
Hitting the door. Have a good weekend.
Buckeye Abroad wrote:
we’ve been hearing that for 36 hrs
Raul Castro
big day…will the GOP cave?
do they understand the concept of political suicide?
Check this out, boobberg thinks the US can sustain an unlimited amount of dept because people are willing to lend the US an unlimited amount money.
Mayor Bloomberg: Don’t Panic About the Sequester
I can’t think more flawed reasoning.
Andy…..did you hear about this one?
A year ago today. I miss him.
@ Rodan:
Thought you might be interested in this. I have read through the first part of it, but I am at work and can’t seem to get to the end.
Googlization of Obama for America, Organizing for Action
@ Carolina Girl:
It’s the oen year anniversary?
Dam, he would have been all over OFA.
Newt Gingrich GETS IT
I can’t cut and past because the text is loaded as an object but do go read it. He sez EXACTLY what we’ve been saying and has some extra ideas on what to do
@ Rodan:
Yep. Had to take time out from the clusterfuck infecting my job at this moment to commiserate. I can’t help but wonder what the campaigns would have been like if we’d had Andy interjecting himself into the festivities.
@ eaglesoars:
I loved Newt during the debates. I knew he’d never get the nomination, but oh I LOVED watching him bitch slap the media the way they so deserve.
@ Carolina Girl:
It would have made a big difference IMHO.
Romney refused to attack obama. The dirt on obama’s admin many failures and scandals was mostly ignored by the media. Andy I think would have provided a much needed voice.
forward ho y’all
@ eaglesoars:
Thank you!
@ citizen_q:
I think so too. Maybe not enough, but I have a feeling we’d have had a fighting chance.
Rodan wrote:
welcome.
I’ve been looking all over for that PJ/tatler OFA piece -- can’t find it. Maybe you should email them.
Carolina Girl wrote:
The Wonkette skanks beg to differ.
The best thing Breitbart ever wrote was “call 911″ in a puddle of his own vomit
@ eaglesoars:
Andy is being mourned anew and remembered all over the blogosphere today; that skank Wonkette, her decrepit minions and Blubber Blogger Johnson will never be missed.
Perhaps that’s the best revenge. Andy’s still loved by the people who mattered to him and the country the most.
Carolina Girl wrote:
The White Racism Whale? King of the moby dicks?
@ 26 Mike C.: A clear message is needed for the war but the ongoing battles need to be fought in the trenches. Every rock needs to be mapped and overturned. Is our clear message any different from the Allies message in fighting WWII?
God is on our side?
Barack Obama is evil? His dem machine is evil?
There it is but will it sell to the voter? most likely not unless some scandals erupt that cloud out things like Fast and Furious and Solyndra. So they have to be pretty serious.
The dem machine is customizing the arguement for every street address. Technology lets them do that. The GoP needs to get their first and make a better first impression. That means making the assumption that every person is a potential GoP voter.
PaladinPhil wrote:
You recruit people who are ignorant of the application to mess with it in every way they can think of. If you feed garbage to the app, it should never break; it should respond with a proper error message and assist the user in entering corrected data.
You also recruit penetration testers to try to hack it.
You test it under a huge transaction load to make sure that your infrastructure can handle everything you throw at it.
And yes, I’ve done a helluva lot of testing and QA.
There are industry-standard procedures for this. It’s a matter of budgeting the money, hiring the help, and making sure it gets done.
citizen_q wrote:
The Chinese will sort him out pretty well.