Winning elections

On Super Tuesday, Obama dominated the independent vote. He also raised $32 million in January, mostly from small individual contributions. He utterly crushed Hillary this past weekend. Clearly he’s running a very effective campaign. What can learn from it?

Read these two links:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/obama_and_paul_the_kings_of_the_web_election.php

http://techpresident.com/blog/entry/21119/is_the_obama_campaign_a_model_for_online_politics

There are commercially-available databases, built up from data on magazine subscriptions, warranty cards, supermarket purchases, etc etc. They break populations into demographic and cultural groups. From there, they can predict people’s attitudes, based on their group.

The Obama campaign bought the databases and used them for targeted marketing. They had tailored messages for different groups. Depending on their data, they would phone, or send mail, or send someone knocking. For their supporter database, they knew who was strong, who was weak, and they followed up.

By contrast, what did the Ron Paul campaign have?

My meetup got a walking list from the campaign, which was simply a list of Republican voters. Free public information. They gave us a neighborhood to walk that basically wasn’t walkable - it was a bit rural, houses were far apart, dogs were running loose everywhere. A lot of these people were diehard Bush supporters.

After that, we picked our own neighborhoods. We picked dense upscale areas that had friendly people. But now we had no information at all. We didn’t even know who was a registered voter…but we still got better results than that first time.

The phone lists they gave us were the same thing: people who’d voted in Republican primaries. Those phone calls didn’t go very well either. If the campaign had done their polling properly, they would have known better:

“Every exit poll and detailed pre-polls showed Republicans were the least likely to vote for Ron Paul. States with open primaries showed him getting three to five times as many votes from Democrats and independents as from Republicans.”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory154.html

Now, I know those pollsters are wicked expensive. Don’t know how much time they need to ramp up, either. Maybe there wasn’t  enough money to justify it until the Teaparty, and by the time they get the database, design and execute the polls, and use the results to tailor some scripts, maybe it’s Super Tuesday already.

But for next time, let’s remember this. The Obama campaign, and probably others, did sophisticated database marketing. We flew a blimp. I loved the blimp, I saw it in Myrtle Beach and it was downright imposing, but I don’t think it really got the job done. It was an illusion of power. In a campaign, information is the real thing.

“Happy Birthday to me”

It is that time of year again! Although some of you are probably thinking about ‘Super Tuesday’ (as if your Diebold counted votes are really going to make a difference) and others may be more concerned with ‘Fat Tuesday’, the real party is going on right here at the Brick. It is my honor to be the first to acknowledge the birthday of our editor in chief! Yeah!!!! ~Staff Writer.

And now for a special note from the editor:

“Happy Birthday to me. Happy Birthday to me. Happy Birthday to meee. Happy Birthday to me. Now stop reading this crap and go vote for Ron Paul! ~Editor, Incontiguous Brick.”

Thank you sir for those brilliant and inspired words. Seriously, if you live in one of the many states holding a primary today, GO VOTE! The Diebold thing was a joke, you really should go. And if you want to give our esteemed editor a really great birthday gift… VOTE FOR RON PAUL! ~another underpaid staff hack.

For a cash donation (an even better gift) you may contact this publication via the comments.  ~Poorly Compensated Editor, Incontiguous Brick.

Texas Independence?

Now here is something you don’t hear about every day…

There is a candidate for US Senator that says a vote for him is a vote for Texas independence. Larry Kilgore, born in 1964 in Amarillo, TX and veteran of the US Air Force is a strong advocate for the succession of Texas.

Here are his solutions (from his website) for just a few of the issues facing Texas today…

Illegal Immigration: Texas Independence

Economic Turmoil: Texas Independence

US Empire’s antagonistic actions toward foreign governments: Texas Independence

US Empire’s antagonistic actions toward Texas: (you guessed it) Texas Independence

I guess the only problem Texas has these days is that it have to put up with the rest of America dragging it down. Apparently, Texans are just better at politics and administering a country than the rest of America.

Before you write this guy off, look at his last campaign. In 2006, he ran for Governor and picked up over 7% of the vote. That is better the Rudy did in most states and the media still considered him a viable candidate right up till he dropped out.

I wonder, with that kind of attitude coming from Texas, how many people in other states would vote to see Texas go?

Here is another tricky one… What will they do with all the Presidential Libraries? The LBJ Library in Austin is quite nice, I’d hate to see that go out of country. Of course, there is the Bush library too.

How’s that for a GOP endorsement?

The American Conservative (that is Pat Buchanan’s magazine) has endorsed Ron Paul for President. Here is an excerpt:

“The presidential fields of both parties have narrowed, and the arguments about how we should move forward are now familiar. TAC believes that only one candidate has put forth a diagnosis of America’s current ills and has a vision to turn the country off its misguided course. That is Congressman Ron Paul, whom we endorse for the Republican nomination.“

Of course, that does not mean the media will acknowledge it.

This seems a little creepy to me…

I can’t quite place it but this seems a little creepy to me.

yikes!

What do you guys think?

Ron Paul TV ad

and if you want to hear Mitt Romney get slammed by a radio host (who then decided to vote for Ron Paul) check THIS out.

Why do we borrow money and give it countries that don’t need it?

Okay. I have to get something off my chest. This has been bugging me for a few days and I need to write about it.

The U.S. supports Israel and we are all great buddies. I get that. It is good to have allies. They were a bit less of a drag during the Cold War. But still, I can see how these things drag on.

But then Mearsheimer and Walt (two highly respected political scientists)published a book titled The Israel Lobby. All of a sudden these two highly respected scholars are being called conspiracy theorists and fools. What is going on here? I had to get this book immediately. I have to confess, I have not read all of it yet so I will not try to recreate their arguments. A German TV show (posted to YouTube) summed up the controversy around the book very nicely.

Here is the thing about the U.S./Israel relationship that really chaps me. The U.S. gives Israel almost $3 Billion a year. Not loans. Grants. Free money. We don’t give that kind of money to anybody. And this has been going on for decades. This made some sense when Israel was just getting established after WWII. But now they are among the top 25 countries in GDP per capita. That is higher than Greece. Not bad for them.

Here is the break down from the January 2, 2008 CRS Report for Congress titled, U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel.

Now, last time I checked we Americans have been running a pretty big deficit. That means the government has to borrow money to make up the difference. So we borrow money (and pay interest) so we can give it too Israel (not a loan) when they don’t even need it in the first place. Personally, I don’t like running a deficit for anything. If we happen to run a surplus, I would have no problem helping out a truly poor country. But to borrow money to give it to Israel makes absolutely no sense. We are on the verge of a recession and this is our policy?

So can someone please answer this question for me? Why do we borrow money to give it to countries that don’t need it?

****************************
Correction: the video was Dutch (not German as someone pointed out)

Afterwards: (after reading 60+ comments that is)

This author (and web site) is in no way Anti-Semitic.

The illustration pictured above is a “piggy-bank” and is in no way a slight to the Jewish Faith. I don’t care what religions are practiced in other countries, I care about where my tax money is going. If it isn’t staying in my country, I want to know why.

This article is about economics and foreign policy, not about religion and ethnicity.

Some have commented that we pay for the military presence in the region. THERE ARE NO AMERICAN BASES IN ISRAEL. There are bases in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

If anything, wouldn’t it make more sense for Israel to pay the U.S. for continued friendship and having their backs?

Ron Paul Finishes Second in Nevada!

Great Article in the LA Times:

“Hidden behind all the hoopla, headlines and the Nevada caucus victories of Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton is one little-noticed but stunning political development and number:

Ron Paul, the one-time Libertarian candidate and 10-term Republican congressman from Texas, was in second place. That’s right, Second Place… ahead of all other Republicans except Romney.”

Read the rest of the LA Times article here.

But what about the rest of the media? What are they saying about his success? A quick perusal of Reddit showed me:
Nevada ABC News Lies About Ron Paul’s 2nd Place Finish.
The NY Times Is Anti-Ron Paul showed me that NY Times did not even mention him in the overall results.

What the heck? Even If I didn’t like his politics I would vote for Ron Paul just to fight back against media giants that think they can control how I think. But the reality is that I am very much in support of Ron Paul and the revival of the constitution in our nation’s politics. If you don’t know what he stands for yet, check it out.

If you want to help, go here and then vote for him in your state’s upcoming primary.

Game time!!!

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Domestic violence registry? How far will this go?

A little while ago I wrote a post about the gun offender registry in Baltimore. I made fun of the idea that there would be other criminal registries coming soon. Turns out I wasn’t as funny as I thought.

Now California is jumping on that train with a domestic violence registry!

Here are some excerpts from the Ledger.

The lawmaker, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, the San Francisco Democrat who is the majority whip, introduced a bill last week to create an online database of men and women convicted of domestic violence in California.

The database would log the names of domestic violence offenders convicted of a felony or two misdemeanors, dates of birth, locations of convictions and other information. Unlike public registers of sex offenders, the database would not list addresses. It would, however, indicate how to obtain a restraining order.

First of all, I am not an advocate for domestic violence in any way. But how far is this going to go? This will be populated with misdemeanors as well as felony convictions. Do we really give up all of our rights when we are arrested for something?