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Comment by bcoates | Hacker News Reader

In the sense of "the democratic party is using technology to their advantage" or "the democratic party is moving the tech industry into their political machine"?

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Based on this article and those about the failure the Romney campaign's get-out-the-vote tool, "Orca" [0] my reaction is that one campaign built usable tech over time, and the other tried to purchase it on deadline.

One system was diverse and cooperative; the other isolated, secretive, and ultimately a failure.

I'll agree that a GOTV tool is only one part of campaign IT, but I think there's a lesson waiting here.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCA_%28computer_system%29

The Romney campaign did not really have much choice, because of their need to secure the GOP nomination first. As the incumbent, Obama had a much longer lead time, which allowed his campaign to invest early and bring more of the development process internal.

And they needed it--they've been pretty upfront that for an uncomfortably long time it was not clear the decision to centralize the technology was going to work at all. The field and other outreach teams did not like or use the products that the tech built for them for months.

I'm not sure what it would mean for them to move the tech industry into their political machine. Could you clarify?

I assume he means having the more appealing political platform to hypothetical Tech Industry employees ie. young, urban and college educated.

For them I think it would mean that they could generate SOPA level pressure on lawmakers.

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