Scan-N-Land

High Tech/Low Tech Campaigns: Back to the Future?

There's an intriguing paradox in the presentation that's being delivered right now to members of the Democratic National Committee, meeting at Washington, DC's Omni Shoreham Hotel:

On the one hand, party strategists such as DNC technology director Ben Self are celebrating the computer and web-based technologies that enabled them to "micro-target" Democratic voters. On the other, successful congressional candidate Nancy Boyda is hailing the use of old fashioned, people to people tactics: like providing lunch for volunteers and buying 16 page newspaper inserts to advertise her views. Dead tree publications! Who knew??

What really seems to be going on is that politicos are figuring out ways to use high technology to make people-to-people contact. Self says that the DNC's microtargeting campaign identified "hundreds" of Democratic voters in Montana's Beaverhead County, a county where there are NO majority Democratic precincts. Statewide, Self estimates the program added more than 15,000 names to Democratic contact lists. Montana Sen.-elect Jon Tester's margin of victory over Republican incumbent Conrad Burns? 2,847.

--kkiely

posted by Mark H. @ 12/02/2006 12:00:00 PM