This site is burning up the internet today. I think I’ve already gotten several emails on it. I’m sure you could do this with voters for any candidate, but it does make a point that in a democracy we share in the common ignorance. This is one reason why I personally oppose the mindless “get out and vote campaigns” because they can lead to a highly uninformed electorate. Why don’t we try “Become informed and then vote”? I served as an election judge three times this year (primary, municipal, and general elections) and witnessed first hand how scary some of our voters are. It reminds me of this Onion parody.

Note: To start everything off, I want to apologize for once again putting long hiatuses between articles. Frankly, midterms overwhelmed me and that had to take priority. Then I got sick, twice, in a three-week period. Things have not exactly worked greatly lately. I probably will not commit to subjects or dates for putting out articles, it just isn’t realistic. However, at the moment my workload has decreased significantly, and I think it should be possible to at least put out an article week. I am also looking at starting a blog on foreign policy and national security, but I won’t let that get in the way of this blog. Now that all of that is out of the way, let’s get to the actually interesting stuff (I hope).

So, election 2008 has finally ended, and the roar of battle is (temporarily) quieted, I am going to take a look at the aftermath of what I consider to be the first truly 21^st century campaign. Technology, and specifically the Internet, played a huge role in President-elect Barack Obama’s victories in both the Democratic primaries and the general election.

There is no doubt that many outside factors played a role as well. The President (43) was already massively unpopular, seeing the worst financial meltdown since the great depression didn’t help.  The inept response by House Republicans made the situation for Republicans, including Senator McCain, much worse. John McCain also made a number of risky choices that he felt were necessary to have a shot at winning. His selection of running mate Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, and his decision to suspend his campaign to work on a bailout bill, in retrospect (and for me personally, clear as they happened) didn’t work well at all. Frankly, no one expected the race to be close, and McCain did as well as one could in the circumstances he faced. One can speculate endlessly as to whether the McCain that we saw in 2000 and 2004 would have made the race turn out any different, but the fact is that he was simply caught in a tidal wave of significant proportion.

However, even in such a scenario, it takes real effort to turn public anger into turnout in the polling booth. Obama, beyond his obvious skills, had an Internet operation that redefined the use of the net in politics globally. If you don’t believe me, look at articles about the website for Israeli prime ministerial candidate Benjamin Netanyahu, it’ll make it pretty clear, pretty fast. He had what was essentially his own Facebook, and a website that looked and functioned a lot better than a lot of movie official websites, which have a much greater range of resources.  

Hell, he even had an iPhone app that allowed you to solicit for fundraising and read his latest activities and policies directly from your phone (well, at least my phone, which is indeed an iPhone).

It wasn’t just propaganda that was distributed over the web, but also voter turnout operations. For the week leading up to the election, I got multiple e-mails from the campaign to remember to turn out and to assist in turning out other people. 

Much has been written about how the Republicans that swept into office in 1994 eventually became corrupted by the very system of power in D.C. that they once despised and promised to change. Instead, idealistic young lawmakers began to fulfill the famed quote of Lord Acton when he said that, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The first true sign of the selling-out came when more and more members that had pledge to fight for term-limits decided that they would break their promise. Member after member would tell their constituents that they were young and naïve when they made that solemn pledge and that with seniority came wisdom and experience. Sadly, many of these pledge breakers were reelected as the taxpayer pork they brought home outweighed the breaking of their word. Is it any wonder however that Congress today has the lowest approval rating of all time? Sadly, the problem cannot fix itself as most voters highly dislike congress, but approve of their own personal representative and senators.

Recently the disgraced former congressman Mark Foley gave an interview to the AP. The most revealing quote was not about his lurid emails to underage pages, his homosexuality, or his alleged alcoholism. No, the most revealing quote was this gem buried towards the end of the story – “In public life, you dream of the day they’ll name a hospital after you, or a bridge or a post office,” Foley said.” There you have it, a living, breathing example of political egotism run amok. Does anyone doubt that far too many of our “public servants” harbor the same dreams as Foley? It’s ironic that Foley first came to congress in 1994 on the wave of the Gingrich revolution and resigned just before the GOP was bounced out of the majority for the first time in twelve years.

There can be no doubt at this point that term-limits must be implemented if we ever expect true reform. This spans both parties and all regions of the nation. To deny it is to make excuses for a failed system. When a convicted senator is nearly reelected in Alaska, when an indicted congressman from New Orleans has literally been caught with secret cash bribes in his freezer, and when the public no longer bats an eye at political corruption, then it is time for drastic change. How can anyone excuse members serving in the House and Senate for over 40 and 50 years while using their seniority to spend taxpayer dollars on pork projects that buy off the voters? Does anyone truly think it is good for our nation to continually reelected members that feed off the federal carcass at the expense of the nation?

The classic case for term limits is our United States military. In all branches members never serve in one unit or assignment for more than four years. Even the Commandant of the Marine Corps serves for only one four-year tour and then retires. This prevents cronyism and serves to ensure that no one from the highest general to the most junior private becomes lax or complacent in his or her post. Can the same be said of Congress today? Does anyone believe that Sen. Robert Byrd has not grown out of touch and entitled since serving in the Senate since 1958? Is it a good idea that Rep. John Dingell has been in the same congressional seat since 1954? Do we really want people in office like Sen. Ted Stevens that have an airport named after them and view the budget as their personal playground? Did we like having Sen. Strom Thurmond stay in the senate until he turned 100 and was barely able to function? The military’s use of term-limits has helped to provide us with the finest fighting force known to history. Can we say our Congress is the finest legislative body ever? Did our Founding Fathers visualize a Congress full of members that spend literally over half of their lives in office? No wonder we have elected officials like Mark Foley that dream of having their names on post offices and bridges. It should be no surprise that former members such as Rep. Duke Cunningham and Rep. Bob Ney are serving time in prison for taking bribes. It’s a culture of corruption in dire need of a cure.

The harsh reality is that 97% of all members of congress are reelected each year. The advantages of incumbency protect them from virtually all challengers. In an age of increased technology politicians have also taken the gerrymandering of districts to a new low. It is now possible to use the latest demographic and voting data to split homes and streets from once district to another, thereby allowing the politicians to chose their voters rather than the other way around. We saw an example of this last week in western Pennsylvania where “Pork King” John Murtha was reelected with 58% of the vote despite slandering our Marines and calling his voters racists and rednecks. His district as drawn in 2001 went out of its way to pack in as many friendly Murtha voters as possible. Murtha then topped that off for good measure by continuing to bring home the government bacon in the form of highly questionable earmarks out of the federal budget.

In the 1980s Murtha was caught up in the FBI sting operation known as Abscam when undercover agents posed as sheiks seeking favors from the government. One senator and five congressmen later resigned from office because of it, but somehow Murtha hung on. His words from the covert video recording linger on as well however. He boldly told the “sheiks”, “I want to deal with you guys awhile before I make any transactions at all, period…. After we’ve done some business, well, then I might change my mind..I’m going to tell you this. If anybody can do it — I’m not B.S.-ing you fellows — I can get it done my way.” he boasted. “There’s no question about it.”

Yes, we need term limits now – no question about it.

I heard someone touting Newt Gingrich today as the “reformer” of the Republican party. Then I heard someone else mention Fred Thompson. I thought to myself…are these guys serious?? Didn’t Republicans learn anything on election day? Then I stumbled onto an interesting interview with Governor Bobby Jindal from Louisiana.

If the GOP really wants to become the G “New” P, how about something out of the ordinary? Something fresh. Something that’s just…well…wickedly different. I know, how about someone who isn’t a relic of the past…someone maybe…like…Bobby Jindal.

Now that’s a refreshing step in the right direction. Better yet, how about they start listening to the issues people actually care about. Here’s a Hint: Google and twitter trends…that might be a good start.

Found this great article written by Mark McKinnon about twitter. Figured I’d pass it along.

The greatest impact the Internet has had on politics is democratization. And nowhere is this trend more evident than in the current use of microblogs like Twitter.

The political conversation in the 2008 presidential election is driven largely by blogs and microblogs. Online democratization has blown to bits and bytes the command-and-control approach that campaigns used to take to communication. Mainstream media reporters now blog throughout the day in an effort to compete with the constant, virtual news cycle.

Despite the information clutter, blogs are bringing new life into the political process. Bloggers are looking for new ideas, fed through their personal lens, to produce the original thought that will impress their network of supporters. This is forcing people to think deeply about politics in order to formulate their own opinions and share their thoughts with others. They are talking about politics; they are getting involved. Across the country, records are being set everywhere for participation in the electoral process.

Twitter is filling an important gap in the digital democracy — a gap that most did not even know was there. If blogs are the inner monologues that occur after we have had a chance to sit down and think, then Twitter is the internal (albeit sometimes random) thoughts that most of us have all day long. Twitter allows us to tap into the collective brain; there is something very fascinating but strangely voyeuristic about this.

People are listening to and analyzing every single word that John McCain and Barack Obama say, so the campaigns don’t necessarily need another channel for communicating to the public. But people are also paying attention to which campaigns and politicians are actually listening to the people as well, and it may be that the true value of Twitter for political campaigns is in listening more than talking. Twitter is more than just a large, unorganized focus group; it is a link to real-time constituent consciousness.

As someone who consults on the power of concise and well thought-out messages, I have a deep appreciation for the 140-character limit of Twitter. If you give a candidate two minutes to say something, he will take three. Limits force message discipline. At the same time, polished messages sound fake on Twitter. This is a delicate balancing act the campaigns must figure out, something they have not done — yet.

Twitter may eventually have a bigger effect on the political landscape than blogging. The possibilities are limitless, and the creative applications are just starting to be realized. The second presidential debate may have been a town-hall format, but the real town hall was on Twitter’s Election 2008 page. (See video of the page in action.)

For anybody who had his or her computer open to this page while watching the debate, it would have been hard not to notice the stark contrast between the stoic live audience and the very lively online audience. It was not as dramatic a shift as the first televised debates almost 50 years ago between Kennedy and Nixon, but more subtly suggested the game has changed.

It’s hard to tell where this is all headed and just what the ultimate consequences may be to the Internet’s role in politics. Like democracy, it can be pretty messy and unpredictable. But we embrace the Internet’s role just as we do democracy, because, in the end, our country was built on the notion of ultimately trusting the power, the will, and the good intention of the people.

— Mark McKinnon has worked for both Democratic and Republican political campaigns, including Texas Governors Mark White, Ann Richards, and George Bush, Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer, and, in 2006, Senator John McCain’s candidacy for President. He is a co-chairman of Arts+Labs and serves on the board of the Lance Armstrong Foundation

Actual Article Here

Much Love Mark, You Rock. @tomserres

Great article by Abigail Shaha about Piryx founder and CEO Tom Serres in month’s issue of Politics Magazine. If any of you can get your hands on the November issue, let us know!

Long Tail Politics: Sell Less of More

It took being a young idealist for Tom Serres to decide to run a friend’s judicial campaign. After all, the odds were 10-1 against winning—and, sure enough, his candidate didn’t pull off an upset. But Serres helped his friend run a close race, despite struggling to get voter data and make the most of a limited budget.

“I experienced personally all the problems [candidates and staffers] go through when all they want to do is make change,” Serres says. Frustrated with the barriers facing regular people who want to run, Serres launched an online company to help small campaigns get the assistance he couldn’t find. “We started moving up the political ranks—helping with local, county and state elections,” Serres says. Soon his services were in high demand, but as prices rose, “smaller campaigns couldn’t afford us anymore.”

This dilemma isn’t unique to the political world. In 2004, Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson described it in a seminal article, “Why Selling Less of More is the Future of Business.” According to Anderson, companies traditionally make money by offering goods that sell in high quantity. BestBuy, for example, sells millions of mainstream, big name CDs that everyone knows and buys.

But what if you want a lesser-known artist who isn’t profitable for BestBuy to shelf? Then you’ll visit iTunes, which sells the same mainstream as BestBuy, plus songs and names that aren’t profitable for large firms to keep in stock. They cater to what Anderson called the “Long Tail”—a scattered group of consumers with more specific needs. And political firms are increasingly finding that they, too, can build a successful business model serving the Long Tail.

While Serres was selling big software packages to lots of state and congressional races, his original judicial candidate could no longer afford his product. Serres had to find a way to make his customized solutions affordable to enough people that he could still make a profit.

His audience was out there, just spread across the Long Tail, and it represented a huge market opportunity for anyone who could make a profi t supplying such a wideranging set of needs. So after a year and a half at the drawing board, Serres envisioned the same Long Tail bridge that the private sector had already started using.

“Technology is becoming more and more of a commodity,” he says. “So if you created a technological system that would allow anyone, anywhere, to run for public office, you could really serve a lot of campaigns.”

Shortly thereafter, Piryx was born. The company sells an online software system that uses the Internet to bundle volunteer management, online fund raising, Web presence and other services. Some of Piryx’s clients are candidates in big races, but many are running local campaigns for precinct chair or school board: the political Long Tailers.

While the Internet has done the most to bring Long Tail marketing to politics, new printers are playing a big role, too. Digital printers can produce mailing pieces that used to require multiple print jobs to let the ink dry.

“Ten years ago, people were charging $700 just for creating and designing,” says Jody Murphy, a partner in Barnett & Murphy Inc, a communications consulting firm. “Then there was the printing and postage and that’s where it got expensive. Here it’s all free because we built it once and it can be used over and over.”

The combination of these factors lets Murphy print at about the same price as with the old printers, but target specialized products to a far wider audience and bring higher profits. The political phone industry is also starting to dip into this market.

“The whole point of our service is to make it appealing in the most simple of ways,” says Les Morales, sales director at Voice Shot, which also takes a Long Tail approach to business. His firm offers call services for everything from robocalls to text messages and polling. “It brings the power of campaigning to the smallest of politicians. People running for president of the local school council can use Voice Shot to garner support just as much as people running for president.”

That’s the same rationale Ravi Singh used in creating ElectionMall, which he bills as a one-stop-shop for smaller races with specialized needs. He says the political Long Tail represents a remarkable business opportunity.

“When you look at the entire market,” says Singh, who is ElectionMall’s CEO, “you’re looking at 1.2 million candidates running this year in over 500,000 elections. The majority of those are state and local races, but the highest expenditure usually comes from the federal races. So if you think about it, you have an untapped market in the majority of the races.”

More advanced campaigning methods can make even small races more competitive, increasing the business opportunity for potential clientele. “If you can provide this kind of environment,” Serres says, “you’re creating a competitive opportunity for everyone to effectuate change on the national or local level.” Put another way, it’s a win-win-win for businesses, campaigns and American democracy.

In a big industry move, the consulting firm at the top of the voter list and campaign technology heap, Aristotle, has acquired competitor Complete Campaigns. Aristotle CEO John Phillips tells Politics magazine it’s a marriage that will allow Aristotle to expand its client base and build relationships with candidates on the state and local level.

“Strategically, this means we can offer high performance software and data to candidates who are just coming into the political process,” says Phillips. “These are future congressional candidates or governors and senators. So the relationship with the company lasts for your entire career.”

He says, as individual companies, the strengths of Aristotle and Complete Campaigns complement one another well. “It’s no longer good enough to just have good data, or to just have good software. You need them both.”

It’s a section of the political consulting industry that has numerous smaller competitors, but few giants at the top. Aristotle’s main competitor for market share is NGP Software, a D.C. based firm.

“We don’t expect this move to affect the Democratic side of this market at all,” says Nathaniel Pearlman, founder and chairman of NGP. “From my perspective neither [Aristotle nor Complete Campaigns] was competing successfully with us. We have a huge percentage of the market share on the Democratic side.”

Complete Campaigns CEO Ben Katz will now oversee the day-to-day operations of Aristotle’s San Diego office, and will serve as the firm’s chief technology officer.

“Aristotle has been at the top end of the market for a long time,” says Katz. “[Complete Campaigns has] worked with a lot of smaller campaigns—city council races, county supervisors. So, together we’re now covering the entire spectrum from dog-catcher to president.”

And the company is hiring. Phillips says he’s on the lookout for some of the top talent that has emerged from this year’s presidential cycle.

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but Phillips notes that both firms have just come off their strongest financial years to date. And, he “wouldn’t rule out additional transactions going forward.”

As for what it means for Aristotle’s top competitors? Phillips wouldn’t say, but Ben Katz’s take: “I wouldn’t want to be them.”

Shane D’Aprile is web editor at Politics magazine.

Now that the presidential election is concluded and the transition is beginning, talk has turned to how Barack Obama will change the face of the technology usage by the government, and by association, the USA.  President Elect Obama has gone on record stating that he intends to create a new position in his administration, that of a Chief Technology Officer.

The New York Times today mentioned Bill Joy, the co-founder of Sun as a possible candidate, while The Industry Standard promoted Google CEO Eric Schmidt.  Other sites mention Balmer and Bezos among other candidates.

The President-elect’s agenda is ambitious:

OPEN GOVERNMENT

He wants Cabinet officials, government executives and rulemaking agencies to hold meeting that are open to the public and transmitted with a live feed.

BROADBAND ACCESS

He calls more aggressive government support of broadband access.

OPEN WIRELESS SPECTRUM

Obama’s plan also calls for reviewing the decision by the Federal Communications Commission to open the wireless spectrum for competition.

NETWORK NEUTRALITY

Obama also is supporting network neutrality, a policy that would ensure Google wouldn’t be forced to pay an Internet service provider extra to ensure the speedy transfer of its data over the Internet.

PRIVACY

On privacy, Obama will call for the creation of what he calls “Public Media 2.0.  Details are still to be revealed for this initiative.

As technologists, you have might have broad exposure to the most pressing technology issues facing your company, and our country by association.  I’ve got 2 questions for you:

1)  Who do you think would make a good CTO for the USA?

2)  What would advice would you give President Obama on technology policy?