Just 4 obama
Mathematics. It works in wonderful ways. And they’ll even make you the comeback kid to the most powerful office in the world. Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign for re-election is being described as the ‘single biggest, data-mining operation’ ever carried out in the history of politics.
If the reports are right, campaign managers arranged for dinners with George Clooney, and Sarah Jessica-Parker by estimating that the two Hollywood celebs were popular with Democrat voters. Here’s what Time magazine carried about the massive data operation, that even planned out dinners with celebs, in secret.
“Backroom number crunchers, who powered Barack Obama’s campaign to victory noticed that George Clooney had an almost gravitational tug on West Coast females ages 40 to 49. The women were far and away the single demographic group most likely to hand over cash, for a chance to dine in Hollywood with Clooney — and Obama.”
Time also describes the steps campaign seniors undertook after these numbers were discovered — “They sought out an East Coast celebrity who had similar appeal among the same demographic, aiming to replicate the millions of dollars produced by the Clooney contest.”
“We were blessed with an overflowing menu of options, but we chose Sarah Jessica Parker,” a senior campaign adviser was quoted by Time as saying. And so the next Dinner with Barack contest was born: a chance to eat at Parker’s home.”
The report also described how the Obama campaign used Facebook and other social media to replicate the traditional, door-knocking efforts from field staff.
“In the final weeks of the campaign, people who had downloaded an app were sent messages with pictures of their friends in swing states. The campaign found that roughly 1 in 5 people contacted by a Facebook pal acted on the request, largely because the message came from someone they knew.”
This data analysis also reveals why the campaign’s craziest decision — putting Obama on chat with thousands of Web users — was taken. The Time report said it was “because a whole bunch of our turnout targets were on Reddit,” the magazine quoted a source as saying.
And finally, how important was this American ‘megafile’ for Obama?
“We ran the election 66,000 times every night,” a senior official told Time, about the different computer simulations they had using real-time data. Apparently, Obama was briefed on his chances of winning, every morning — just by numbers.
But what did this number crunching essentially do? It tracked your internet behavior, your spending habits, your age, your cultural profile on the Web, your address, your comments on social media, and then used all that data to bring back Barack Obama to American presidency.
Long live, freedom...hopefully.
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