Obama’s Technology Innovation | Hacker News Reader

Obama’s Technology Innovation

slate.com

20 pointssethbannon8 comments

I highly suspect that whatever software Obama has, it's nothing that can't be reproduced--better--within four years' time. Certainly it won't turn him into a major power broker for years to come--given the state of technology, I'd be surprised if half of it is relevant and functional in 2016.

Obama was the most tech savvy campaign 4 years ago and remains so today. Think of all the Senators, Representatives, mayors, governors, etc that have nowhere near the sophistication of any presidential candidate, let alone Obama. It's not a question of whether or not technologists can make better software in the next 4 years, it's about what politician can do so, or which technologists would a politician trust to run their campaign.

I found the "Obama for America Tech Volunteer Sign-Up" google form available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHR0WXl...

The form was found here, with context: http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2012/03/26/obama-technology-fi...

Obama came out of the 2008 campaign with a huge, well-segmented and highly targeted email list, and big numbers on social media. Many folks thought he was going to dramatically change Washington by coming into office with basically his own grassroots army. Yet, a year later he was struggling to get health care moving and the lists weren't helping.

It turns out that no matter how good your DB is, people just don't get as excited for legislation and regulation as they do for a candidate. Ultimately politics is not about technology, it's about message. If the message is good, tech can help maximize the impact. If the message isn't good, tech can't save you.

> people just don't get as excited for legislation and regulation as they do for a candidate

Or, perhaps the legislation never matched up to the candidate. The examples of Obama's hypocrisy are well-documented, from war to spending to pot, and so on. Obama is becoming a flop because he's been a hypocrite on some of the most important issues of the day.

The problem with the healthcare bill wasn't voter apathy, quite the opposite. It was more-or-less successfully resisted (we'll see what SCOTUS does) by a handful of Blue Dogs who were forced to listen to their relatively conservative constituents. Short of organising large scale migrations of activists into those districts, I don't see what Obama could have done about that.

They should open source it.

What would that accomplish? If they think there's power in keeping this technology to themselves, they will.

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