Another Perspective
The One Scary Thing About the GOP’s Tech Deficiency
The other side not only has data whizzes but the wherewithal to manipulate voters.
(Page 2 of 2)
The GOP did extensive research in the last decade to identify characteristics across voting blocs that would indicate a propensity to vote Republican. The practice, popularly known as microtargeting, assumes that people with similar patterns of consumer behavior or attitudes will vote in similar ways.
In other words, if people who drive Nissans, people who drink Evian, and people who watch Real Housewives of Wherever-they-are-this-week all tend to vote heavily for Democrats, then a voter whose profile indicates they do all of those is most likely a safe vote for the left.
The Republicans did groundbreaking work in this area and the Democrats invested heavily to catch up.
Now, much has been written about Obama’s data nerds, and I suspect that comes from the nerds themselves tooting their own horn. It’s a common problem with people involved in successful campaigns. It’s also why I tend to look for the casual mentions of things that don’t get wide coverage to identify where the real win happened.
In the case of Obama, the frightening advantage the left has is in a less touted entity known as the Analyst Institute (AI) and a consortium of behavioral scientists or COBS. The combination should be truly terrifying for anyone on the right.
To sum it up briefly, the AI and COBS combine to create an academic approach to data that the right truly doesn’t have and may well have difficulty matching. The AI works with many left-leaning groups on an institutional level to test messaging components to see what moves people. In many ways it is a matter of simple multivariate testing to identify messages that move people — present a number of different versions to subsets of your list and see which performs best. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Where the AI becomes terrifying is when you mix it with COBS. COBS, for its part, is a collective of behavioral scientists from across academia who specialize in a much more advanced form of microtargeting. These are people concerned not only with your characteristics and voting behavior, but how they can manipulate that behavior. They’ve united to form a behavioral brain trust for the left.
It’s one thing to know that someone is a likely voter and test messages to see what moves them. That would represent the intersection of the AI and traditional microtargeting. You’re just trying to trigger the characteristic that would cause them to act on a latent behavior to which they are already inclined.
When behavioral psychologists, behavioral economists, and behavioral political theorists unite to identify ways of shaping behavior, you start to see possibilities the best propaganda machines in history could not have imagined.
During World War I and World War II nations were experimenting with art, songs, movies, books, and messages that could elicit a patriotic response. They were so effective that this country effectively prohibited the government from investing in the practice.
Now consider the possibility of doing the same level of experimentation with triggered emotional response but you have data telling you what music the audience consumes, the movies they watch, the TV shows they sit still for, and even the food and drinks they buy.
For the academics part, it’s the perfect situation. The Stanford Prisoner Experiment requires disclosure of testing parameters to subjects of experimentation. Political communication has no such restriction. If you want to get field knowledge of how to bend, fold, and twist voter behavior — without having to tell voters they’re being manipulated — who wouldn’t sign up?
That simple, frightening fact is why I, a dedicated technologist, have no fear about the GOP’s deficiency in technology, but instead stay awake at night terrified by our lack of access to the academics studying these fields.
Our challenge is not in data or technologists. Our challenge is competing in the realm of academic investigation and the brainpower represented by professors with tenure who do nothing but come up with ideas to explore. Now they have access to a free, unrestricted laboratory to test their theories, and a party willing to foot the bill. It is a perfect storm from which the GOP may truly be unable to escape.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (47) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 2.11.13 @ 7:17AM
I have two observations to make.
(1) Forty years ago when "microcomputers" were starting to seep into the workplaces of the world, and my Daddy saw his daughters gleefully running through department stores writing two or three lines of code to get all the computers in a continuous loop reading THIS IS THE LAST STRAW FOR YOU, DUDE (which we teenagers thought was hilariously funny), he said, "The next world war will be fought by 12 year old boys deep in an unmarked bunker, who have no idea of the consequences of what they are doing;
(2) They will find a way to connect all these things and the next revolution will be started by somebody who will send out a signal to the kids to push the snowball down the snow-covered hill without ever teaching them where it's going to end up.
Daddy, it seems like you nailed it again.
Joellen| 2.11.13 @ 7:28AM
Mr. Turk, I recently attended the March for Life in DC on a very cold, snowy January day.
There were hundreds of thousand YOUNG people at this event. PRO LIFE YOUNG PEOPLE.
Who is getting to these young people, definitely not their professors or their teachers at hight school. Why it must be their parents - who would have thunk it!
What we need Mr. Turk, is for the families to take hold and re-educate their children "their" way. Teach them the basics, including the Ten Commandments, the US Constitution and instill in them faith in GOD, family and Country.
I witnessed it that day Sir, I am not relying on the GOP - to me at this point they are dead. They've deserted their core principals.
This holds true for our Churches also. If they are teaching "social justice"; well its time to either fight to rid the Church of this evil, or abandon it and find a church that teaches the TRUE DOCTRINE and not the worlds agenda.
What I hope happens, is we see more families home schooling and in time, we get more conservatives going into the educational field.
But Hope is for the Obamaites.
So lets do what we have to do to educate the young voters - from what I keep hearing - they did vote for Romney - it was the older folks who voted obama back in.
Who would have thunk it!
Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.11.13 @ 8:02AM
One thing to consider about pro-life youth, Joellen, is that they were born in an era where their parents had a choice, and chose to have them. As such, there is a better than average chance that they grew up in an environment where life was respected, as opposed to their aborted counterparts. This may ultimately be one of the circumstances where the shifting demographic brings an increase in hope for some positive change.
John Navratil| 2.11.13 @ 7:46AM
Joellen,
You are right, of course. But this isn't in the realm of politics. The Democrats and too many Republicans are quite content for the masses to look to the government for support. Who will dismantle the Dept. of Education and the public school system? That's the "free stuff" that even Republicans can embrace.
TLP| 2.11.13 @ 10:45AM
So, this what it's come to at TAS?
First, it was Ben Stein's Diary/Hostage Tape/Suicide Note/Sleep Aid (in its Audio form).
Then it was Irish Booze, Datsuns, and a World without people who can't pronounce: Forget about it.
Now, this Computer version of The Cable Guy gets a Gig?
Wassup wit dat? And, gimme your Money, fo I busts you up!
The problem with getting out the Republican Message, is that the Republicans can't get out their Message. And, it's got nothing to do with Fixing Computers.
I'm assuming that most of you, who are not trying to untie yourselves so you can wash off all of the Vaseline and Mascara from Last Night's Party in Provincetown, celebrating The Year of the Cock, (which I'm told - unlike the Chinese - is Every Year) have heard Rush's comedic rendition of Ken Starr and James Carville on the Larry King Show.
It doesn't matter what they say. The Republicans will NEVER get a message out, through Enemy Lines. If they came up with a Cure for Cancer? The Left Media would splash it across the Front Pages: "Right Wing in Bed with Big Pharma!" If they found a way to reverse Aging? That same Media would trumpet: "Far Right Extremists aim to Deny Seniors Social Security and Medicare!"
This situation is no different than that of any other Leftist Dictatorial Hunta. The first Order of Business is to take over all Communication Outlets.
The only difference here was that this Regime didn't have to.
They were already on board.
Gary B| 2.11.13 @ 11:41AM
"The Republicans will NEVER get a message out, through Enemy Lines."
Very well said, but that assumes Republicans want to get their message out. I believe - and Karl Rove just confirmed - Republicans hate and fear conservatives, so there is no energy behind getting a conservative message out on the national level.
Conservatives need to abandon national Republican Party candidates. The fix will always be in on the national political scene. Change will occur from the bottom up with Tea Party candidates winning primaries.
TLP| 2.11.13 @ 12:31PM
Sometimes, when you try something long enough - like "Getting your Message out" with this Media - you reach the point where you stop trying, and accept "NO" for an answer.
Like asking a Table with about Six Chicks sitting at it, at the Disco (in the 70's) to Dance, one at a time, and getting shot down everytime. By about the 4th one, you start realizing that you need to find another table.
Pecos Pete| 2.11.13 @ 1:24PM
I'd try to find another dance hall. But then, I've no experience.
Gary B| 2.11.13 @ 2:55PM
Yea... the Tea Party Dance Hall.
delahaya| 2.11.13 @ 5:55PM
The media is actually even worse than we think it is. They actively collude at all levels. Some wealthy conservatives are literally going to have to start buying media outlets and just shutter them.
Doctor_X| 2.11.13 @ 7:48AM
The best book I’ve ever read on this subject is NUDGE which is co-authored by Cass R. Sunstein. It is all about how to Nudge people (read as manipulate) into making the decisions you want them to without them knowing it. It’s sad to say but everything I’ve read about this topic comes from the LEFT. I don’t agree with the politics of Sunstein, but the man does know what he is talking about.
I’m in the minority, an academic on the RIGHT and I know how much distain there is for the LEFT, however we have to use the best information we can from wherever we can find it and adapt it to our cause. I’d love to put my academic skills and my doctorates in Information Systems and Communications to use for “The Cause” but no one has asked me!
loulou| 2.11.13 @ 11:14AM
Sunstein is married to one of the broads in the Obama regime--is it Anita Dunn, I forget? But Sunstein is the enemy, no doubt about it.
TLP| 2.11.13 @ 2:29PM
It's Anita Dumb.
You are correct.
Patricia Anderson| 2.11.13 @ 6:46PM
Samatha Powers is his wife ,she is worse than Anita Dunn.
Butch| 2.11.13 @ 7:36PM
Me too, Dr. X. I'm a professor specializing in consumer behavior, for God's sake. I am familiar with data mining and I am a lifelong profiler, but nobody has asked me, either. I would prefer to get paid, at least something, but I'd do it for nuthin' as a patriot if I was asked.
bustunloose| 2.11.13 @ 8:06AM
Me bets alot of that dough O and the dems shovel to Acedemia pay for alot of this research-not exactly finding a cure for cancer.Another words we chumps are paying for the guns and bulletts they use to kill us. Sweet I guess for them-bitter fruit for us. But hey we got Rush and AM radio- what more do we need.
Pecos Pete| 2.11.13 @ 8:10AM
Having managed several businesses over many years, I early on concluded that "consultants" are a waste of money except for specific technical or legal issues, like KingOcare.
King O won reelection because he promised good stuff to people who didn't have the stuff already. Simple. An idiot would understand instinctively that this marketing technique is a winner. Technology didn't make a whit of difference.
State and local Conservative organizations understand and promote Conservative Principles and that is why they are having a real impact at the state and local level. It doesn't take a computer or technical behavioral consultant to understand why this is happening.
Several candidates for national office in 2012 didn't win because they either made a single really stupid public statement or wouldn't voice Conservative Principles. Common sense would have kept them from losing, not a consultant.
A president was elected because he said, "Read my lips, no new taxes." And, then he didn't win reelection because he did raise taxes. Simple common sense wins elections. Truth telling wins elections. Principles win elections. And, giving stuff to uninformed voters wins elections.
TLP| 2.11.13 @ 12:57PM
"Having Managed several businesses over many years........"
Let me guess: A Mail Order Saddle Sore Ointment Company.
The Hemorrhoid Relief Cream Kiosk at the Albuquerque Mall.
The "Cactus Combs and Hairbrush Tent" at The State Fair.
An Italian Ice Cart in the Middle of the Desert.
And, a Barber Shop at the Indian Reservation.
Pecos Pete| 2.11.13 @ 1:24PM
Close, but no cigar.
TLP| 2.11.13 @ 2:29PM
You sold Cigars?
Job| 2.11.13 @ 1:52PM
Several candidates for national office in 2012 didn't win because they either made a single really stupid public statement or wouldn't voice Conservative Principles.
yeah but with the MSM controlling what stupid things are amplified and what is squealched how do you compete.
For example: Joe, big f#ckin deal, Biden, "put ya'll back in chains, You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent, When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television."
TLP| 2.11.13 @ 2:31PM
Please refer to my 10:45 Comment, above.
Job| 2.11.13 @ 6:51PM
out of the mouth of two witnesses...
bustunloose| 2.11.13 @ 8:53AM
They lost because of extremism on social issues and an utter disdain for the poor. Stop listening to Limbaugh and tune in Jindal and Rubio and to some degree Cruz who had better trim him sails a bit-his harse tone and words at times will destroy his crossover appeal-the does not revolve around the 8 per cent who are tea party the GOP desparatley needs moderates and political agnostics-and poor people who often are highly patriotic and just want a way out to fullfill some ambitions and dreams-like it or not the federal and state governments play a roll. Kasich is another to watch. Mitch Daniels too. Send Rush and company out to pasture-if talk radio is an avenue then find some new fresh hosts who are extremely bright and know what really is going not some guy living in a bubble that uses his 50's upbringing as the source of his real life experience.
loulou| 2.11.13 @ 11:33AM
You sound like a RINO.
BTW, neither Rubio nor Jindal are elegible to be POTUS as they are both "native born" US citizens not "natural born".
Cruz is brilliant--I guess you call that harsh. You had better man up. Cruz communicates effectively and confidently.
Yeah, I'm watching Kasich--he sold his soul to the devil and is throwing his lot in with Obamacare. He can kiss his dreams of higher office goodbye.
John Navratil| 2.11.13 @ 11:45AM
loulou,
I don't know where you get this "natural born" definition. There are two ways to be a citizen. By birth or naturalization. There are no others.
GobBluthe| 2.11.13 @ 11:48AM
It comes from FreeRepublic mostly
Gary B| 2.11.13 @ 11:46AM
Every fifteen minutes, a Republican caves in. You can set your watch by it.
bustunloose| 2.11.13 @ 4:15PM
Let me see doing a man's job starting at 15 with masonry, playing football at a competitive level in college, and yes Viet Nam, and then 40 years in construction, yeah I goyya man up and talk right wing trash=you nitwit. By the way Kasich is playing chess and you right wing boobs are playing some stone age version of checkers. Just go-leave the GOP alone-we will expand our teny many more will enter than the nasty, heartless,uninformed, oblivious to reality conservative absolutist who leave it. BEAT IT !
loulou| 2.11.13 @ 9:33PM
Temper, temper...
Butch| 2.11.13 @ 7:39PM
"poor people who are often highly patriotic . . ." Dream on.
Bob K| 2.11.13 @ 9:11AM
This is all well and good but what if the Republican leadership screws up and the candidates it endorses do nothing to go after the votes of these newly identified and targeted people?
Mr. Turk probably has enough techs right now to start targeting the tax payers in the Middle Class and the Reagan Democrats. (Dare we identify them as "Tea Party" types?) Those groups showed that they were ready to switch in the 2010 mid-term elections and they did as we witnessed the Republican's taking over the House of Representatives and gaining control of the majority of the State governments and the redistricting of the Congressional districts.
When the 2012 Presidential Election campaign came around they were ignored! That is why we lost! These people were there for the taking but the leadership was embarrassed by them. Impressing big media was more important!
cicero| 2.11.13 @ 10:54AM
Pecos - I agree. It doesn't take computer modelling to understand demographics. The simple fact of the last election was that O promised free stuff to enough people that they gave him the margin of error. The college campuses went heavily for him after he promised the students that, after nationizing the student loan program last term, he will forgive their loan debt this time around. The professors were already in his pocket. Hard work and delayed gratification cannot compete with free stuff and instant gratification.
Conservtive values may return when this whole house of cards collapses. It won't be pretty, and a lot of people will be stunned. However, once they finish sweeping up the riot debris from the streets, and find out that those who are working are also eating, while those who are not aren't, things will change. We may have a republic, or we may not, after that. But such are the ravages of history.
Petronius| 2.11.13 @ 12:06PM
The Dems are busy right now counting the noses in Conservative Congressional districts to determine the numbers of Liberal voters they need to register in them to take those seats 2 years hence. And they will get it done. There are NO real Republican election judges in too many places, but thousands of Liberal Democrat moles registered as such. That's why Romney got NO votes in a lot of major cities. Next time, the few hard core Conservative Republicans still in the House will get kicked out of Washington by phantom voters registered in Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma by our enemies. They even admitted that's how they're going to do it. And the GOP response to this is , "huh? What?"
Job| 2.11.13 @ 2:02PM
the elephant in the room is that tech hacking is a game of one-upmanship and to have computerized ballots is to beg for a rigged election and ditto what JD said below.
delahaya| 2.11.13 @ 5:52PM
Yep, and Soros just bought one of the big voting machine companies. Wonder why?
delahaya| 2.11.13 @ 5:56PM
Agreed, but where is the manpower the GOP needs going to come from? We already work. The Democrats have millions of people with nothing to do who are happy to work elections and agitate.
Butch| 2.11.13 @ 7:44PM
Do you think ACORN and all those hundreds of millions just disappeared like a puff of smoke. They were working on fraud in those inner-city precincts for four years. Obama campaign posters and literature were INSIDE the voting places in many of those precincts. I guess "True the Vote" didn't want any part of observing in those places. Massive, wholesale fraud was how we lost this one.
JD| 2.11.13 @ 1:26PM
The data problem that plagues the GOP has nothing to do with voter profiles. It's the mountain of false data believed by millions of voters.
Derek Leaberry| 2.11.13 @ 2:10PM
The Democrats have imported enough voters to add to what they already have and now have an electoral majority. The Republicans and big business have helped the Democrats. They are that stupid. Tech deficiency has nothing to do about it.
PolishKnight| 2.11.13 @ 4:02PM
Derek, great minds think alike. You don't have to be a computer genius to figure out that a majority of Democrat voters care primarily about race, gender, and in the future, gay preferences. But sadly, Republicans still haven't figured that out and think that if they just tune their message on abortion a bit better, that'll win elections for sure.
In the meantime, the left's agenda is a form of cronyism and fascism buying the rest of the votes they need or just cashing in and the right lets them get away with that too by looking the other way when they hire an illegal to cut their lawn at a discount, hire an H1B, or just buying in.
You know... all this obsession with technology amuses me because while it's useful, the fact is that the twitter generation isn't anymore efficient than we are. I have a standard PC (gasp!) not even portable (a mac actually) that's 10 years old and works great. I get tons of research done on it. And when I'm at the cafe, I sip coffee and read a book. Silly me. Instead, the twitters have to use their thumbs for an hour at a time to tell their friends breathlessly about how Starbucks has a new flavor. I remember IPods: They were called walkmen. And twitter: Ham radio and morse.
Fiscal| 2.11.13 @ 5:36PM
This article completely misses the point. The purpose of microtargeting is NOT to change voters minds, it is to increase turnout of favorable voters and to get funds. Democrats simply have more voters and if they can get out minorities and the young, they win. Republicans win by depressing voter turnout and gerrymandering. Microtargeting has nothing to do with issues.
The fundamental problem with conservatism today is that historical conservative principles do not apply and the party has become belief driven rather than intelligence driven. Social issues, which turn off the majority of voters, have become a requirement, rather than just part of the mix. For example, in Reagan's time, when we were less global, reducing taxes did stimulate the economy. Now, it doesn't.
People, inundated with lotteries, want something for nothing. Democrats offer more of this than Republicans. Republicans have little to offer the middle class. The key to win the fiscal conservatism battle is to make people feel the pain of actually paying for what they receive. Republicans don't have the cajones to do this and thus you find huge deficits built up by Reagan and Bush.
My solution? To make people feel the pain and force them to choose priorities. Until we do that, conservatism -- and the country -- will lose.
delahaya| 2.11.13 @ 5:47PM
The other problem is conservatives have to work. Democrats have quite a lot of "the idle class" that they can use to agitate and work elections. There is also motivation - conservatives want to work hard and take care of their families and be left alone, while liberals want to take power and tell other people what to do.
delahaya| 2.11.13 @ 5:46PM
Yes, we need to do what the author suggests. However, the GOP's challenges run much deeper than technology - there are structural and demographic challenges that only get worse as we don't stand up to them. Structurally, our elections are flawed and fraudulent. The left knows this and knows they benefit from it which is why they so viciously attack anyone looking into it. Early voting should never have happened. It gives Democrats 30 days instead of one to bus the homeless and dementia patients to the polls and "assist" them with voting. Absentee voting has become so rife with fraud that it wouldn't suprise me if a full 1 million votes each cycle are now totally fraudulent. Throw in "snowbirds" who vote in multiple states, and the suppression of the military ballot this cycle and it adds up. While Obama won several million more votes than Romney, only a couple hundred thousand votes actually settled the election. Demographically, the Democrats continue to breed the underclass ever larger, and also import millions of poor, illiterate people from Third World countries. It takes a conservative voter 18 years to come to age, but a Democrat voter just one day to cross the border (and yes, illegals vote). This is national suicide in the long-term, yes, but in the short term it gives the Democrats power. It is "Idiocracy" come to life.
delahaya| 2.11.13 @ 5:51PM
Obama was also ruthless enough to defy the law and have no budget, which allowed the massive overspending and huge deficits, but...this spending helped hide the pain of an incredibly bad four years. One day the credit card bill will come due, but by then he'll be out of office. Needless to say, Obama is the biggest narcissist to ever be President, which is saying something.
Stevemmn| 2.11.13 @ 8:27PM
Not to worry, all Republicans have to do is plant a mole, better still several moles and infiltrate Democrats' data mining apparatus. Not to sabotage their operation, but to learn how they do it and copy it.
You don't have to have state of the art knowledge to copy the other guy's success. That's how the Soviets built the A bomb a few short years after we did. Their technology was far behind ours and it might have taken them 20 years to do it on their own, but with their spies they got access to our detailed plans and simply copied them.
Adam Schaeffer | 2.14.13 @ 3:20PM
This article is right on . . . we are at a serious disadvantage, but my firm, Evolving Strategies, is in the process of closing the gap.
The key is running controlled experiments on everything we can . . . that is the only real way to build true knowledge about what works and what does not.
The Right needs to embrace a scientific revolution in politics . . . and fast.
http://evolving-strategies.com/projects/