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Trump Does Data
Credit where credit’s due, it seems the Trump campaign’s investing in a data operation, at least for fundraising:
GOP strategists familiar with the Trump team’s efforts pointed out that his campaign has been working for weeks to integrate its data operation with the RNC’s, and they suggested that the candidate may have been intentionally head-faking his critics with comments suggesting he doesn’t see the importance of data to his campaign. For instance,Trump told he Associated Press last month, “Obama got the votes much more so than his data processing machine. And I think the same is true with me.”
One GOP data source said the Trump campaign is “far more sophisticated than anyone has seen or reported on.” The source said “there’s a substantive infrastructure that’s not been seen or found out about or reported about quite purposefully.”
But it’s also true that Trump’s increasing investment in data appears driven by his need for his supporters’ cash.
The real estate billionaire had largely self-financed his primary campaign, obviating the need for a digital infrastructure necessary for a robust online fundraising program, and several campaign sources said he was reluctant to greenlight costly expenses, including data.
Hopefully, they’ll continue to build out the voter info database, and think ahead to get-out-the-vote efforts and not just fundraising.
Published in General
Well, thank you for the imagery of Donald Trump canoodling with Brent Spiner. Now, I’m stuck with that in my head for the rest of the day.
All the angst and shadenfreude coming from some quarters about Trumps fundraising and ground game might be justified, or they might be missing a couple of things. First is the quote referencing Obama getting more votes than his machine, and I’ve made the point that passion and message are paramount while money and organization are secondary. I’ll take Trump with half the money than aRomney with full campaign coffers any day.
Second, I trust Trump and his team to be wiser with his funds and more nimble and less plodding with his ground game coming from a business and not the standard political machine background.
I’m beginning to think that the GOP legacy insiders don’t have much of a clue anyway, rather like Generals in WWI endeavoring to move the trenches 30 yards closer to Berlin as an operating strategy.
I’m a data nerd, so I naturally have a bias towards setting up a strong analytics program and by all reports the 2012 Obama campaign had a tremendously powerful program in place.
I’m also detest and despise the cult of personality, the celebrity president, which probably drove Obama’s election more than data analytics.
So while Trump might be right, that because he’s Trump he doesn’t strong analytics, it’s just one more reason I hate what our elections have become.
Well, he’s already got you! He needs people who aren’t you!
As for arguments, if you think he’s right, he already is who he is–he needs to add stuff. Is there any reason why he shouldn’t have done all the big data stuff? Nobody’s asking him to go back in time & turn into Mr. Romney here! The people who are willing to support him because he’s the party nominee–not me, were I not a foreigner, but a large majority of the GOP electorate–need to see this sort of thing, or at least some of the influential ones do.
What pray tell does ‘his team’ know about business? What great successes adorn their pictures in the wikipedia-in-the-cloud where business successes are trumpeted? Mr. Romney was a far savvier businessman, no?
He will do the data. I remember listening to the Ricochet podcast featuring Reince Priebus marveling at Obama’s data GOV operation and wanting to imitate that. To me that was focusing on the wrong thing. We have too much of that kind of methodology dress-up when it’s the resonance of the candidates’ message that counts for getting out the vote. With a guy who says nearly nothing like Romney, you need to drag people to the polls.
I’m not saying you don’t need both. I am saying that message and passion beats data and organization every time.
Romney’s get-out-the-vote operation stopped working on the day of the election.
More importantly, if Trump manages to get 268 electoral votes with little fundraising and no get-out-the-vote effort, it will represent an incredible testament to the power of his media personality and messaging. It will also represent a loss, and a Clinton Presidency. As a #NeverTrumper I’m still hoping for down-ballot Republican success, so everything Trump does to increase turnout is encouraging, while everything he doesn’t do is discouraging.
I’m not sure you’re right–I happen to think the election will be pretty close–but whether you’re right or wrong, soon after Iowa, at latest, Mr. Trump had already proved everything he was going to prove by way of message & passion. Things have snowballed since–he did not have to out-Trump himself or have have you.
Above all, he, like you, did not believe what the party was saying nor buying what they were selling. Nor his electorate. There was no need in him to fail at these tasks–there was no temptation or prior habit of falling into the trap you mentioned.
Most of the people with the money & the influence he needs could easily have been persuaded had he been successful in big data, money getting, &c. I don’t see any good reason why he has not had people do far more. This mistake seems both typical & telling to me–but I do not know that it is irredeemable. If he will be from now on do great work on these fronts, he will win most of the institutional-organizational support he needs.
As you pointed out–the rest depends solely on him.
Romney was more an accountant and speculator than a the kind of businessman Trump is. Has he ever built anything? He ‘rescued’ failing companies and reorganized them from above. Also I’m not sure he asserted himself and what expertise he did have upon his campaign. He left it to the GOP machine pretty much. Looking back on his run for POTUS, it seems he played everything very safe and inside the box.
The fact that Trump is where he is at this point with the resources at his disposal shows that he is doing a good job. Will he need more data and more money? Yes, of course. We shall see.
BTW, Trump doesn’t ‘have’ me as much as leftists ‘have’ me as an enemy.
I know what you mean about GOV re Mr. Romney–but that’s nothing to do with business acumen or proven ability.
As for this other business, I also hope for down ballot success, have no hope of his victory, nor much pleasure in the fantasy–& I agree that he will prove the worthlessness of the party as he has already proven its weakness. The election will be too close for the party to be able to claim any competence; recrimination will be thrown every which way; & the Trump-supporters will have precious little future & will have done next to nothing for their country of lasting quality…
Expect everyone to learn all the wrong lessons.
Here we are agreed. & therefore I do not deny that the party is getting the thrashing it has earned. I just do not think it will lead to the outcome you & I both desire above all–which I take to be a partisanship that can bloody liberals & progressives so badly that they come back to their senses. I’m not sure what more can reasonably be expected, at least…
I do not believe this is true. I think it only shows he knows what Mr. Perot did, how to manipulate the media. I believe that is ultimately self-defeating.
Also, what do you mean ‘resources at his disposal’? His supposed billions?
For the sake of American politics, I hope he runs a good campaign–that seems to me a necessary shock to the complacency of your oligarchic classes…
Sure–I only meant for purposes of the campaign or at least the vote…
I want to like this comment multiple times so consider this yet nother like! Right on. I hope Trump does not depress turn out for down ticket Republicans as much as I fear he will.
After years of supporting the republican party, I am now getting emails from Eric Trump and the Trump campaign which goes right in the trash can, which are now designated as spam.