When the nerds go marching in
The team had elite and, for tech, senior talent — by which I mean that most of them were in their 30s — from Twitter, Google, Facebook, Craigslist, Quora, and some of Chicago’s own software companies such as Orbitz and Threadless, where Reed had been CTO. But even these people, maybe *especially* these people, knew enough about technology not to trust it. “I think the Republicans fucked up in the hubris department,” Reed told me. “I know we had the best technology team I’ve ever worked with, but we didn’t know if it would work. I was incredibly confident it would work. I was betting a lot on it. We had time. We had resources. We had done what we thought would work, and it still could have broken. Something could have happened.” …
We now know what happened. The grand technology experiment worked. So little went wrong that Trammell and Reed even had time to cook up a little pin to celebrate. It said, “YOLO,” short for “You Only Live Once,” with the Obama Os.
When Obama campaign chief Jim Messina signed off on hiring Reed, he told him, “Welcome to the team. Don’t fuck it up.” As Election Day ended and the dust settled, it was clear: Reed had not fucked it up.
The campaign had turned out more volunteers and gotten more donors than in 2008. Sure, the field organization was more entrenched and experienced, but the difference stemmed in large part from better technology. The tech team’s key products — Dashboard, the Call Tool, the Facebook Blaster, the PeopleMatcher, and Narwhal — made it simpler and easier for anyone to engage with the President’s reelection effort.
Blowback
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Yeah, the lying with every breath wasn’t the real reason; it was Twitter.
Bishop!
truth2power on November 17, 2012 at 8:59 AM
Could these gentlemen possibly create software that reminds them to do a few crunches every morning?
radjah shelduck on November 17, 2012 at 9:07 AM
I guess we can blame these three nerdy white guys for economic calamity, a deeply polarized country, American decline, and a much more volatile and dangerous world now that Barry is more “flexible”.
May these three nerdy white guys never find full-time employment or have enough money for new hipster glasses and novelty t-shirts.
Punchenko on November 17, 2012 at 9:13 AM
Yeah, or you would think Mooch would snap the sugary lattes out of their fat, sweaty little hands.
Punchenko on November 17, 2012 at 9:14 AM
I still don’t get why Obama needed a tech dream team to GOTV. All he had to do was point to the heaven on earth he has created over the past four years.
Kataklysmic on November 17, 2012 at 9:15 AM
I’m quite positive they could write some code that would show how far in debt they’ll be by the time they want to retire.
hawkdriver on November 17, 2012 at 9:15 AM
This is just too much nerdiness for a Saturday morning. I’ll get back to ti later. Much later. After football…
ExpressoBold on November 17, 2012 at 9:18 AM
For these guys, the death of the Twinkie is indeed poetic justice.
Bigfoot on November 17, 2012 at 9:42 AM
It’s funny because I never knew all this behind the scenes stuff before the election. All the talk about demographics change has nothing to do with it, they just were better at getting out low- interest voters. We all thought we had the excitement on our side, and maybe we did, but it didn’t matter because they got out the voters who weren’t excited. We need to perfect this, and we will, but definitely by the off year elections because that is where our more in-tune electorate pays off, if the democrats improve their turnout on off year elections we’re screwed.
rose-of-sharon on November 17, 2012 at 9:52 AM
It’s more than that. They were paying kids out of college — all struggling for work — $30K to be trained and “community organize” in some of these swing states (especially in heavily minority districts.) They had a whole machine plopped right down that paid well, provided training, and turned out the votes they needed. Obama’s campaign was even hiring Spanish-speaking staff to send to the west for organizing, too.
If the GOP is to win going forward, it too will have to start community organizing and pay staff to do it.
Punchenko on November 17, 2012 at 10:02 AM
This still doesn’t explain why so few people bothered to vote for Romney. Team Romney’s computer glitches don’t explain the paltry turnout either. Too many Republicans are obviously living in a bubble if they can’t foresee that even after four years of quasi-socialism millions of their own people can’t discern enough difference between the two parties to show up.
Seth Halpern on November 17, 2012 at 10:11 AM
How come lefties – the world over – don’t like to shave? I’ve noticed this everywhere. Look at academia, even in the sciences, the profs generally have long scraggly beards. Che, Castro, even Lenin had a goatee.
But the scraggly beard is a hallmark of the those who hate “the rich”.
keep the change on November 17, 2012 at 10:35 AM
Three words: Electronic voting machines
stefanite on November 17, 2012 at 10:55 AM
Don’t these idiots see what is happening in their own state?
WisCon on November 17, 2012 at 11:35 AM
It’s very groupthink-y to point to this and deny it. Like ignoring culture, the old heads at the GOP haven’t a clue, as to what to do on social media, or have sense to hire all the firebrand bloggers, Twitter folks with tens of thousands of followers, the masters of FB, Tumblr, Reddit, & fun stuff like memes & photoshops. This, unfortunately, made a huge difference. I worked at the RNC, I saw it first hand, many years ago, the denial of the importance of not turning up your nose on what’s new. Obama’s team got it. Twice.
di butler on November 17, 2012 at 11:38 AM
Reminder: Jesus wore a beard…what’s wrong with that?
Pragmatic on November 17, 2012 at 12:00 PM