A lot of people waited for the 3am text message which Barack Obama promised would inform the ordinary person who his pick for Veep was going to be before the MSM. Then they saw the announcement that Joe Biden would be his running mate on the news. The inbox of their text messages still had nothing. SFGate tells the story:
But hours before the text was sent, the campaign’s famously tight communications ship sprung a leak. So the first to know that Sen. Joseph Biden would be in Springfield on Saturday were not those who had signed up for a text message, but those who were watching cable television news programs at around 10:45 p.m.
The article goes on to say that “tech problems” may have prevented Obama’s publicists from keeping their word. That raises the question: had anybody ever heard about development, test and production? How can you promise production without the previous two? But if the text subscribers got nothing, Obama got something. A database. “Now it has a way to contact an estimated 3 million mobile phone users. Because the system it used categorized recipients by ZIP code, the campaign will be able to easily contact those folks in the final days of the campaign when their focus will be on getting out the vote.”
“From a tech point of view, the mass (text) message seems to have failed,” wrote Micah Sifry, co-founder of techpresident.com, which examines the impact of technology on politics. “But from an earned media standpoint, and an organizing standpoint, the mass (text) experiment looks pretty successful. Three million names is phenomenal, especially if they can now segment them by ZIP code.
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49 Comments
1. cjm:the names and information collected may have value to a tele-marketing firm, but they won’t get obama any extra votes.
Aug 24, 2008 - 7:04 am 2. Clioman:Just what I need. Some asshat calling me at 3 a.m. to remind me that “the polls will be closing very soon.”
Aug 24, 2008 - 7:15 am 3. wretchard:People I know pay money to get unlisted numbers, take their names of telemarketing databases, get domain registrations which hide their details behind an agent. Others get multiple sets of emails. One for their public face. Another for their friends and associates. How many people can send a text message to Barack Obama’s cellphone? How many people’s cellphones can Barack Obama send a text message to?
Most of us acquire an online identity over time, consisting of our contact details and such attributes as can be pulled together. Ordinary people have relatively little defense against the creeping advance of database builders. But it’s safe to say that what distinguishes the rich and powerful from Joe Ordinary is their ability to control information about them. In some sense being invisible is the ultimate luxury good.
Aug 24, 2008 - 7:19 am 4. programmer:How many people’s cellphones can Barack Obama send a text message to?
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Aug 24, 2008 - 7:29 am 5. KennyB:Its a little scary in a Steven King sort of sense, like his horror movies where the zombies are waiting for the secret signal to send them all attacking the major in town hall.
Aug 24, 2008 - 7:34 am 6. slade:Wear the special sunglasses Kenny. They’ll keep you safe.
Aug 24, 2008 - 8:04 am 7. what is "occupation":Count on the messiah fans to support the messiah to a degree…
historically Gays, Blacks and youth dont actually turnout to vote…
as the messiah’s clothes appear to be missing more and more (needing an old white christian guy on the ticket, moving to the center, fisa & more) they will diminish in numbers…
Every week that goes by that Iran continues it’s building of nukes, every russian adventure, every islamic beheading will sway the center to pick McCain…
I would not count on the Messiah’s core support groups to much of anything but party.
Aug 24, 2008 - 8:06 am 8. 3Case:What! WHAT!! The Democrats promised the people in order to get something for free and then didn’t deliver??!! Quelle suprise!!
Aug 24, 2008 - 9:10 am 9. 3Case:Democrats lied or techno fried?
Aug 24, 2008 - 9:14 am 10. CPT. Charles:I think I’ll go with Occham’s Razor on this one.
Look to the ‘conditions’ BHO’s campaign set up to get THE message: give us your data and we’ll put you in the front row for this ‘historic event’. Now then, that being said, does anyone think BHO was REALLY going to stiff the drive-by media on this one?
The end result: Obama’s campaign gets a butt-load of data on potential minions, the press gets thrown a bone. The Obamabots who got stiffed: they’ll get over it the first time they get a ‘personal message’ from the Dear Leader-in-waiting.
No, I think everything went as planned.
Aug 24, 2008 - 9:15 am 11. steveaz:Richard,
I’m lovin’ the worm-on-the-hook graphic. Angling metaphors are exceedingly appropriate this election year.
The bait that got the folks to sign up for O!’s personal text message appears to have been a fake lure, a metal spoon-lure perhaps, with a barbed hook and no real bait on it whatsoever.
O’s campaign is all flash and no flavor, but, for some reason our self-pronounced betters keep biting on it.
Aug 24, 2008 - 9:22 am 12. hdgreene:So, you tell all your friends, “Friends, Barack’s gonna treat a little guy like me just like the big guy. He’s gonna tell me about his VP at the same, exact moment!” Except the Big Guy finds out first. And during your weekend at the beach, your friends are ragging on you about your txt messaging pal. You suffer over some boring VP choice of some old white guy from a state you never heard of (and you’re from Maryland).
It could have been different. You could have found out first and it could have been Bill Ayers or someone with the last name of “X.” It could have been so good.
Now on election day you get a reminder. A reminder that the little guy is of little importance. So do you stop having sex to go vote? Hell no.
Personally, I think Sen. Obama should’ve chose Bob Barr. If McCain can (potentially) choose Joe Lieberman, why not Bob Barr as a Unity choice for Big O? Besides, Barr opposed the Iraq war in a speech he gave to a rotary club somewhere. And if he can’t bring twelve states, he can at least bring twelve votes. He’s a Southerner, to boot.
Of course, he’d have to put his own dreams on hold. But imagine the media frenzy! And the reaching out…
Aug 24, 2008 - 9:23 am 13. NahnCee:Agree with above posters. If the quid pro quo was “give me your phone number and I’ll text message you,” when why on earth would I agree to vote for this person if he text-messages me to next time with my stolen phone number. He broke the agreement so it seems to me that a huge number of those 3 million cell phone numbers will be saying, “I don’t think so” when B Hussein texts them to vote for him next November.
Unless, of course, Obamaniacs are like Charlie Brown trusting Lucy not to pull the football away THIS time.
Aug 24, 2008 - 10:00 am 14. Lifeofthemind:Bet moonbat phone numbers and emails are worth money to spammers. Some people will buy anything.
Aug 24, 2008 - 11:22 am 15. Teresita:Steveas: The bait that got the folks to sign up for O!’s personal text message appears to have been a fake lure, a metal spoon-lure perhaps, with a barbed hook and no real bait on it whatsoever.
Okay, there’s still some kinks to be ironed out, but Obama’s noble experiment to make the White House work like American Idol continues apace. By January 2009, people will be able to text in their preferences for anything from renegotiating NAFTA to defending Taiwan. For the first time, Americans will have a direct impact on what their President will do. And what could be more Democratic than that?
Aug 24, 2008 - 11:32 am 16. Langley:We (still?) live in a Republic – not a Democracy.
My sister said that Democracy was like a gang rape.
Aug 24, 2008 - 11:40 am 17. Lifeofthemind:My wife asked what form of government was a “good date.”
I said a benevolent dictatorship with me as king. We still get along.
This is a Republic and not a direct democracy for reasons that should be all to clear. The weakest part of the American system is in the legislatures. Particularly this holds at the State and local level. There are real problems in the Executive branch and Lord knows we have shed many electrons talking about the problems of the Judiciary. Congress richly deserves its current approval rating of less than 10%. Still the real dysfunction on a system level is in the state legislatures. New York and Illinois are particularly bad but most of them are dreadful. The answer is not the lazy move of simply concentrating more power at the Federal level by transferring functions. What is needed is a clearer separation between the two levels. The reasons for the deterioration of State government have increased as the Federal government has expanded. Now the states serve largely as transfer agents begging for money from Washington. They skim of a percentage and pass the rest on through programs such as Medicare. The best thing to do is repeal the 17th Amendment and then pass another Amendment stating that no State may receive, spend or transfer funds from the Federal government except for certain specific enumerated purposes, such as training the Militia.
Aug 24, 2008 - 11:59 am 18. Charles:imho three million addresses for text messaging represents a powerful database even after the election. Obama has the numbers of all the most dedicated party members.
My WAG is that Obama gets somewhere in the neighborhood of +-40% of the vote. What does that mean? It means that the gore/kerry/obama wing of the democratic party will be just about repudiated.
The dems are already lining up Mark Warner as the democratic presidential candidate (to go up against Romney/McCain) for the presidential election of 2112 — if you mark the the keynote speaker at the dem convention as the heir apparent. Obama performed the keynote in at the democratic convention of 2004.
Obama crowd sensing the drift and the coming terrible fight for control of the party directon– want to control the party apparatus. That’s what communists are really good at.
Aug 24, 2008 - 12:11 pm 19. Alaska Paul:Who in their right mind would sign up for text messaging from Obama or McCain, except those into the care and feeding of their hungry egos.
Like someone said on a thread: “I will vote for McCain, and then go out into the parking lot and throw up.”
You want to go into the ground in an uncontrolled spin, or you want to go in a slower graveyard spiral? I hate to be cynical, but that is the way I see it. In a graveyard spiral, at least we have bought some time, so I will pick choice 2.
Aug 24, 2008 - 12:29 pm 20. Doug:ot from Michael Yon:
No Victory Dances
23 August 2008
I hope to land in Afghanistan tomorrow, but as for tonight, I’m stuck in a hotel reading everything I can devour on Iraq and Afghanistan. An interesting interview with General Petraeus surfaced. General Petraeus has always been objective in his communications with me.
I see in this Newsweek exclusive, that General Petraeus is again dampening expectations. I’ve seen him do it over and over. Now isn’t that amazing? An American General who actually makes it a point to dampen press enthusiasm. But while delivering the raw truth, General Petraeus gains enormous credibility with journalists, who then reach untold millions of people.
I remember stepping off his helicopter one night before he roared away into the Iraqi night. Just before I took off the headset and unbuckled my seat belt, General Petraeus said something like, “No Victory Dances.”
I stepped out and his darkened helicopter disappeared into the night, nearly knocking me over with the rotor wash. General Petraeus has enormous press credibility because he delivers the good, the bad and the ugly.
Now for General Petraeus:
Gen. David Petraeus is due to relinquish his role as the commanding general in Iraq in mid-September, moving up to head CENTCOM, the U.S. military’s Central Command, in overall charge of the conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He sat down for an hour and a half this week with NEWSWEEK’s Rod Nordland, at the general’s office in the American Embassy, in Saddam’s old Republican Palace.
Aug 24, 2008 - 12:34 pm 21. dla:Click here to read the entire article by Rod Norland in Newsweek.
Fun to see Obama shaft his supporters first – sort of a dry run I guess. I’m beginning to believe that this is just a taste of what is to coming if Obama makes it to the Whitehouse.
As we draw closer to November, will Obama morph into a chocolate Clinton?
Aug 24, 2008 - 12:52 pm 22. buddy larsen:agree with alaska paul –buying time is the most important thing to do in an uncontrolled descent. the shitz to get the controls back you’re already too low.
Aug 24, 2008 - 1:59 pm 23. Teresita:cCain’s VP (to be announced on his 72nd birthday at a rally in Ohio on August 29th, none of this text message shi’ite) is gonna be Joe Lieberman. It’s going to be called a bipartisan “Unity Ticket”. You heard it here first.
Aug 24, 2008 - 2:57 pm 24. buddy larsen:give us a hint –who gave ya the skinny?
Aug 24, 2008 - 3:01 pm 25. Peterike:Joe Liebs, huh? Great, a VP who’s been right on one issue and wrong on just about everything else. You call that a “Unity” ticket? I call it screwing your own team.
Sadly, I think this could well be true. Lieberman is exactly the sort of “bold” choice you would get by using a committee of consultants to decide. It has it’s cleverness, but I don’t think it’s half as clever as Team McCain may think. The Left has already written off Lieberman as a traitor and an apostate, and the media will spin it as a turncoat story. One of the things they do best is demonize someone in just this way, since to a Liberal there is no greater sin than hypocrisy (i.e. Lieberman will get Linda Tripped).
A better — I think — bold move was suggested on the previous thread, of picking Hillary for Sec State or some such position. Imagine the drama of announcing this at the Convention and then having Hillary come out to give a speech (assuming she doesn’t get booed). She’s certainly more than willing to sell her soul, so it’d be doable. And she could sell the role based on her “realistic” world view, etc, and she wouldn’t be in a position to poison any domestic policy. Politically, it would bring bunches of Hillary voters to McCain’s side, putting the knife into BHO’s back.
Combine that with a female VP, and you’d have feminists with steam coming out of their ears as their internal circuits shorted (whatever would the gals at The View make of such a thing?).
Aug 24, 2008 - 3:17 pm 26. Whitehall:Wait one minute, there, LifeoftheMind dude!
Sorry but we Californians have the absolute WORST state legislature in the country. Through in a numbnuts Governator and a state Supreme Court that invents stuff out of thin air, contra to public vote, we will take a backseat to NONE of the other 57 states in dysfunctional government.
Back on topic, this list has got to have the most suckers per million of any commercially available database. As 3Case noted, SOP for the DNC.
Aug 24, 2008 - 3:21 pm 27. .:“…this list has got to have the most suckers per million of any commercially available database.”
I was thinking that as well. I bet if someone cross referenced Obama’s list against the list of people suckered in that Nigerian E-mail scam the number of matches would be legion.
Aug 24, 2008 - 3:30 pm 28. slade:Speaking of Scams.
Aug 24, 2008 - 3:42 pm 29. steveaz:Teresita, Right on Girl! I’ve been thinking for months that both McCain and Lieberman have positioned themselves for exactly that: a Unity Ticket.
It’s a winner, I think. Look for a bipartisan Energy Plan that includes drilling in ANWR as well as subsidies for “alternative” fuels. Also, I see a bipartisan agreement on immigration in the works, too. And, best of all, the Bush tax cuts are made permanent.
The R’s give a little, the American D’s (as opposed to the Araby D’s) give a little, and we all win together.
Here’s hopin’.
Aug 24, 2008 - 3:45 pm 30. Peterike:Since the McCain VP pick is getting close, why don’t we put our cards on the table and take our guesses about who it’s going to be? The winner gets…. well, nothing. Other than the pride of being right.
Seems Teresita has already gone and picked Lieberman (you have the right to change this T, I don’t want to speak for you).
I’m going to say I want Palin, but I think it’s going to be Huckabee. I have a feeling the “seven or eight houses” bit has put a scare into Team McCain and they want a guy with middle-class cred, not another rich dude like Romney. Plus, he will pull the Evangelicals, who are getting softer in terms of their Republican support. He’s a good talker, he can be funny, he’s likeable. Even the media seems to like him, but that’s because they know he’s really a pro-life Democrat (though of course they will shred him if he’s going up against The One).
I have a feeling Huck fits the profile of what Team McCain thinks they need to — shudder — “balance the ticket.”
And it won’t help. Huckabee will be painted instantly as a hillbilly, god-lovin’ gay-hating freak by the media. He will get Quayled, and BHO goes on to win.
Aug 24, 2008 - 3:49 pm 31. Teresita:Peterike: Combine that with a female VP, and you’d have feminists with steam coming out of their ears as their internal circuits shorted (whatever would the gals at The View make of such a thing?).
No one wants a female VP more than me. But Hillary ain’t going to be it, because the GOP base would revolt. I think Sarah Palin is great, I was kicking her name around the Elephant Bar for a while, but she only brings the Eskimo vote (joke. I mean she only brings Alaska, which is already solidly Dem). It’s only the far left nutroots and latte drinking middle-upper management types consider Fighting Joe Lieberman a traitor. The lunchbucket beer’n'pretzel Democrats who turn wrenches will see McCain reaching out to them with this pick. And maybe he can peel some of the Jewish voters away from B. Hussein Obama.
Aug 24, 2008 - 3:51 pm 32. Teresita:Errata: I mean Alaska is solidly GOP! I really like the old Belmont Club site better, Wretchard, I could fix boo-boos like that.
Aug 24, 2008 - 3:53 pm 33. wretchard:I really like the old Belmont Club site better, Wretchard, I could fix boo-boos like that.
It had certain advantages. On the other hand, Google could shut you out of your blog often by accident any time.
Aug 24, 2008 - 4:01 pm 34. Lifeofthemind:Teresita, I’m sure most of us feel the same pain about losing the old tools and interface.
Aug 24, 2008 - 4:02 pm 35. Lifeofthemind:Whitehall,
Obama can sell this list to telemarketers with no constraints. He may make more money off this than from his books. Audacity indeed. Aging boomers and moonbats, suckers for ever scam from give your car to charity to mushroom farms for social justice.
Aug 24, 2008 - 4:07 pm 36. NahnCee:“I really like the old Belmont Club site better, Wretchard, I could fix boo-boos like that.”
‘It had certain advantages. On the other hand, Google could shut you out of your blog often by accident any time.’
Are there really only two options in the blogging universe? To me as a reader/commenter there has been absolutely no up-side to this move, and several annoying down-tics.
Aug 24, 2008 - 4:55 pm 37. Zim:Palin would be the antithesis of Mr. Hair plugs.
Huckabee makes me cringe (and I’m a southern protastant)but would help McCain with his base.
I see too many potential problems with Romney, though I like him the best. He would be effective as an attack dog for McCain, but McCain is an attack dog himself and really doesn’t need this the way Obama does.
As long as it’s NOT Lieberman most will say McCain picked better than Obama not matter who else it is. Honestly can you imagine the VP debates with Lieberman and Biden. After they finished arguing over Iraq they would have to stop the debate because they agree with each other on everything else.
Lieberman would be a disaster.
Aug 24, 2008 - 5:03 pm 38. Alaska Paul:Palin is very popular here in Alaska, after she shook up the Good Olde Boy network here, and some of em have gone to jail, courtesy of the feds.
She is a religious lady but does not wear it on her sleeve. Her husband works on the slope, and she just had a baby, who has Down’s syndrome. They new about it from early on, but they were very ademant about having it with the knowledge of its condition.
Gov. Palin has a stronger sense of values and convictions that 95% of all the politicals in Congress and the Presidency.
McCain better get his head out of you know where and stand for something other than poll watching. McCain is older and he should have a strong VP, just on statistics.
This whole thing depresses me.
Aug 24, 2008 - 6:50 pm 39. Alaska Paul:PIMF.
Gov. Palin has a stronger sense of values and convictions THAN 95% of all the politicals in Congress and the Presidency.
Aug 24, 2008 - 6:51 pm 40. JFSanders:Elizabeth Dole or Mark Sanford.
Me personally would like to see Kay Bailey Hutchison but she is a little bit of a light weight. Mrs. Dole would be able to pull the feminists and soccer moms. And she would give McCain some shielding against the typical attacks of racism and such.
Jim
Aug 24, 2008 - 7:06 pm 41. Peterike:Powerline has a number of good posts about Not-so-Joltin’ Joe Biden.
My favorite bit is this clip from a New Republic profile of Biden in October 2001, conveying a meeting of Biden and staff shortly after 9/11.
Biden launches into a stream-of-consciousness monologue about what his [Senate Foreign Relations] committee should be doing, before he finally admits the obvious: “I’m groping here.” Then he hits on an idea: America needs to show the Arab world that we’re not bent on its destruction. “Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran,” Biden declares. He surveys the table with raised eyebrows, a How do ya like that? look on his face.
These may be the two biggest idiots ever to (dis)grace a major party ticket.
Aug 24, 2008 - 7:49 pm 42. Kirk Parker:Huckabee would, in many ways, be worse than Liebarman. Back when HRC looked set to take the nomination, I said that the only thing that could get me to vote for her was if Huck won the GOP nomination. Having him as VP would be only marginally less awful.
Really Palin would be an excellent choice. Talk about middle-/working-class cred–isn’t her husband an oilfield worker?
Aug 24, 2008 - 7:59 pm 43. buddy larsen:i’ve only seen her in action once –she’s very good, very appealing. The interview spent half the time on some sort of scandal being thrown at her –which she remained good-humored about. Something about firing her ex brother-in-law from the state gov’t or somesuch. A grasp by enemies, sounded like.
Aug 24, 2008 - 8:52 pm 44. Doug:Whitehall,
Aug 24, 2008 - 9:56 pm 45. Gypsy Man:Ain’t that the truth!
—
Then there’s this:
In the Ruins of the Housing Boom, the Price of an Illusion
In the Central Valley, the Ruins of the Housing Bust
—
Great National Graphic:
Worth Less
It’s always hard to keep a secret when a lot of people know it. Especially when you have Democrat campaign people who want show off to their Demcorat media comrades how much of a big cheese they are in the Obama campaign…
Aug 24, 2008 - 11:56 pm 46. Whitehall:Elizabeth Dole completely lost me with the airbags-and-seat belt deal while SecTrans. A political deal lacking technical or economic justification.
Aug 25, 2008 - 12:11 am 47. Doug:Contact with Telemark.
Aug 25, 2008 - 1:34 am 48. Doug:They’re Paying Attention Now
The Rick Warren debate mattered. Why? It took place at exactly the moment America was starting to pay attention. This is what it looked like by the end of the night: Mr. McCain, normal. Mr. Obama, not normal. You’ve seen this discussed elsewhere. Mr. McCain was direct and clear, Mr. Obama both more careful and more scattered. But on abortion in particular, Mr. McCain seemed old-time conservative, which is something we all understand, whether we like such a stance or not, and Mr. Obama seemed either radical or dodgy. He is “in favor . . . of limits” on late-term abortions, though some would consider those limits “inadequate.” (In the past week much legal parsing on emanations of penumbras as to the viability of Roe v. Wade followed.)
As I watched I thought: How about “Let the baby live”? Don’t parse it. Just “Let the baby live.”
As to the question when human life begins, the answer to which is above Mr. Obama’s pay grade, oh, let’s go on a little tear. You know why they call it birth control? Because it’s meant to stop a birth from happening nine months later. We know when life begins. Everyone who ever bought a pack of condoms knows when life begins.
To put it another way, with conception something begins. What do you think it is? A car? A 1948 Buick?
Aug 25, 2008 - 5:24 am 49. David M:—
– Exclusive Obama’s lost law review article –
His article acknowledged a public interest in the health of the fetus, but also seemed to demonstrate his continuing commitment to abortion rights, and suggested that the government may have more important concerns than “ensuring that any particular fetus is born.”
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 08/25/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
Aug 25, 2008 - 12:16 pmSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.