Meet the Campaign Connecting Affluent Techies with Progressive Candidates
theverge.com
theverge.com
Why the advice to avoid Firefox for non-techies?
https://tcij.org/sites/default/files/u11/InfoSec%20for%20Jou...
Happy to put a free 30 min course together if one does not already exist.
Homelessness, water problems, filthy sidewalks, no housing, etc.
Why export the money?
He doesn’t even own a laptop or smartphone.
Spencer doesn’t take PAC money.
You should look up the history of "progressive" in the political context. It has nothing to do with keeping up to date with technology.
Welcome to Arkansas! The Democrats here are a faint shadow of those on the coasts - they walk a fine line to have any chance at making it into office, and have a (at least publicly) uneasy relationship with the DNC.
I note that the word "progressive" only appears once in a search of Spencer's campaign site[1], and isn't used to directly describe him or his beliefs: "[...] we must no longer be afraid of making bold, progressive demands on the issues that matter most to average Americans [...]"
> How is Great Slate itself not a PAC, in the general sense?
I'd say it is, in spirit. In practice, my understanding is that the distinction is in the fact that individuals nominally choose where how their donations are allocated, whereas a PAC makes that decision on their behalf.
1: https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Apaulspenc...
If someone could unlock a way for idealists and pragmatists anywhere to the left of fascism to work together better then the government would far better reflect the views of the population (which, polling tells us, are all in line with the Democrat platform). It's only gamesmanship from the Republicans, and apathy from everyone else that keeps them and their unpopular ideas in power.
Look at the DCCC screwing Conor Lamb in Penn. There is no downside; he's running in a district that was Trump+20.
In Arkansas? Citation, please.
Here, Democrats have to be very careful not to align themselves too closely with the social platform of the DNC, while Republicans have to dance around the issue of farm subsidies.
> their [Republicans] unpopular ideas
Yeah... about that. In Arkansas, our incumbent GOP governor has a single primary challenger - Jan Morgan. Morgan is best known for running a shooting range and vocally defending it as a "Muslim Free Zone". Here are her words: http://janmorganmedia.com/2014/09/business-muslim-free-zone/
Arkansas is moving to the right, not to the left. I have no doubt that your assessment accurately reflects the realities of the areas around most HN readers, but it's dramatically incorrect when applied to this state.
For what it's worth, I've not seen any polling to know for sure how Morgan is doing against Hutchinson, but the impression I have is that she will lose to him but that his public stance will shift further to the right in response to her primary challenge. Some fairly clear signs of that started to manifest around the first of this year: http://www.guns.com/2017/12/29/arkansas-governor-weighs-in-o...
There's measures and processes that can ensure politics better reflects the will of the people. I would guess that in Arkansas, like many other places, it's Republican's who are fighting against these things, and Democrats that are fighting for them. Why? Because the Democrats know that in general, the people support their policies, and the Republicans know in general, the people don't support theirs.
I just googled "Arkansas Voter Suppression" and found this recent story:
http://fortune.com/2017/03/25/arkansas-voter-id-law/
"Arkansas’ governor signed a measure Friday requiring voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot, reinstating a voter ID law that was struck down by the state’s highest court more than two years ago.
...
The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit that led to the previous law being stricken, said the latest measure raises the same concerns that voters will be disenfranchised. Holly Dickson, legal director for the ACLU of Arkansas, said the sworn statement provision in the latest law is an improvement but that the measure still will risk hurting voters.
“Of course we have concerns that voter ID is going to do harm because that’s been Arkansas’ experience so far with voter ID,” Dickson said."
Extreme primary challenges like you mention only really have an effect in first-past-the-post systems, because the party thinks it can win with 30% of the vote and has no need to reach across the aisle to work with the other 70% if they can get a small group motivated enough to vote. Obviously targetted voter suppression makes this even easier, while moves to require votes, or just make it easier to vote complicate it.
It doesn’t help that Ceglowski is insistent on giving the candidates briefings on information security. He carries YubiKeys — hardware authentication devices that are the gold standard of two-factor authentication — with him to meetings with those running for office. Beefing up security practices in political campaigns is important, especially given the email hacking that dominated the 2016 cycle — but a strange man showing up to explain two-factor authentication to you is probably a little off-putting nonetheless. After raising nearly a million dollars combined last quarter, “they’re being a lot friendlier to me,” says Ceglowski.
This ia great, but sad that it takes a million dollars to make people use two-factor.
A good chunk of that was driven by security researcher Thomas Ptacek’s promise to stop tweeting about Eric S. Raymond, a notorious figure in the open-source community whose bizarre and abundant ramblings on everything including race and sex could be considered early forerunners of current alt-right strains in the tech community.
I don't really know what to say...
I suppose it's possible, but I seriously doubt it.
I live in Arkansas. I was born here, grew up here, and recently bought a house and moved back after living five years in Charlottesville, VA. While I'm not in Spencer's district I know several people who are.
From my perspective, this article is going to be a millstone around Spencer's candidacy. It will do substantially more damage to his campaign than the money will bring him benefit. There is a strong GOP majority there, and being able to point to this article and say "Look! My competitor's campaign is being financed by California liberals!" will all but guarantee that incumbent French Hill will be able to consolidate and energize his base.
The district flipped in 2010, after the retirement of seven-term incumbent Democrat Vic Snyder. It was successfully handed off to another GOP candidate in 2014 when the previous incumbent gave up his seat to run for governor.
Further, in light of Trump's recent rapidly changing stance on gun rights, I anticipate that will be polarizing issue of the 2018 midterms. Of the 435 current members of the House, Hill received the most money from the NRA[1] - just over $1m, split between ads supportive of Hill and opposing his opponent. According the Great Slate website[2] they raised $938k in Q4 of last year, which was divided amongst nine candidates. That's less than 10% of what the NRA alone provided to Hill last election cycle, while it sounds like it constitutes the majority of Spencer's war chest.
In short, while the approach taken by the Great Slate is valid and could have had a significant impact, this article probably eliminated what little chance Spencer had in this election.
1: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/lawmakers-nra-money/story?id=...
If they could get people to read the article they'd quickly note the bit about how he didn't get support from the DNC...
Yeesh. Some people.
You must be getting downvotes too, because I upvoted you.