I have always been a fan of Howard Dean. I love the way that after he lost the nomination he proved his love for the party by helping to rebuild it. Now this story in Politico "DNC blunts GOP microtargeting lead" make me realize how fortunate we are to have him as our chairman.
After years of struggling to catch up to the Republican Party’s sophisticated microtargeting efforts, the Democratic National Committee appears to have come close to parity.
The DNC has now reorganized its data banks into one centralized file that goes a long way toward neutralizing the GOP’s advantage in drilling down and identifying crucial constituencies of voters.
In the past two presidential cycles, the Republican national voter file allowed the party to more efficiently locate, communicate with and galvanize voters. Democrats, by comparison, relied on a disjointed compilation of national and state party data files that varied widely in quality. To boot, said one DNC analyst, many of their files would vanish after each election year.
As Kos pointed out before in "Remember Begala mocking Dean's 50-state strategy?" when he said this about Dean's strategy "he(sic) spent $64 million. He says it's a long-term strategy. But what he has spent it on, apparently, is just hiring a bunch of staff people to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose."
I bet this micro targeting and not "nose picking" helped in Mississippi when we won the recent special election in the MS-1st. Remember there was high turnout of Democrats in a very Republican district. Yes I know the GOP attacked Obama and this turned out the black vote. But remember this isn't the first racial charged attack the GOP has run, but this was one of the largest backlashes.
After years of struggling to catch up to the Republican Party’s sophisticated microtargeting efforts, the Democratic National Committee appears to have come close to parity.
The DNC has now reorganized its data banks into one centralized file that goes a long way toward neutralizing the GOP’s advantage in drilling down and identifying crucial constituencies of voters.
In the past two presidential cycles, the Republican national voter file allowed the party to more efficiently locate, communicate with and galvanize voters. Democrats, by comparison, relied on a disjointed compilation of national and state party data files that varied widely in quality. To boot, said one DNC analyst, many of their files would vanish after each election year.
For Democrats, the shift to one "solid voter file" is "transformative," said Ben Self, the DNC’s director of technology.
"Whether it is microtargeting, regular targeting, neighbor-to-neighbor knocking on doors, or volunteers making calls," Self said, "all these vital campaign activities are built on a national voter file and were not available in 2000."
Or in 2004, when Republicans took full advantage of their advances in technology. In Florida alone, as President Bush sought reelection, consumer data enabled the GOP to locate regular churchgoers who were not Republican, as well as identify a group of Hispanic mothers particularly supportive of the No Child Left Behind law.
The DNC and Republican National Committee now each boast one vast data coffer that merges traditional voter statistics on gender, geography, or party identification with consumer and census data.
Hal Malchow, one of the pioneers of microtargeting, emphasizes five key characteristics in which consumer data points are most helpful: deciphering ethnicity and race, church attendance, marital status and gender, geography, and gun ownership.
I don't have a lot to add to this story I just wanted to pass the good news along! The part of the political process that most people don't see, party building, GOTV, ect. is some of the most important. I'm glad Dean realizes this, and isn't just a big fundraiser like previous chairs have been.