A Bad Idea Is A Bad Idea, Even If It Is Ours
March 9th, 2006 | by Omnipotent Poobah |
You know, a bad idea is a bad idea, no matter who comes up with it.
Exhibit A, a story about some well-connected Democrats led by former Clinton aide Harold Ickes. Ickes icky idea is to data mine a variety of sources to identify Democrats who presumably would vote along party lines and cough up enough cash to blunt the Republicans’ control of all things governmental.
“The Republicans have developed a cadre of people who appreciate databases and know how to use them” Ickes said. “Appreciate” them, hell they love them. The cadres go by the initials FBI and CIA and work under the auspices of the UnPatriot Act. Nobody swings a virtual pick any better than these guys and they have the data nuggets to prove it.
Ickes rationalization sounds awfully familiar, almost Bushonian in it moral relativism. “It’s unclear what the DNC is doing. Is it going to be kept up to date?” Out-of-date information is “worse than having no database at all,” he says. Remove the reference to the DNC and insert “the American people” and we could swear his voice sounds just like Alberto Gonzales channeling Bush’s need for more data in the War on Whatever It Is This Week.
As usual, the Republicrats beat the Democans to the punch. That bastion of American unity, the RNC, started several years ago to build a database of voters centered around what they call “anger points”. Hate abortion, here’s the list. Hate liberals, here’s the list. Think Karl Rove is the latter day coming of Jesus and Bush is his God, here’s the list. Members of a South Dakota abortion cult, well, you get the idea.
We’re sure the Republicans will piss and whine about this move, much as they piss and whine about many other “unfair” and “damaging” practices they employ themselves. You really have to hand it to them, hypocrisy, like evolution, is a concept well beyond their comprehension.
However, we’re equally sure many Democrats will support this high-tech gold panning operation, claiming that if the other side does it they have to too. This argument is akin to India and Pakistan both claiming they need nukes to “protect” themselves from one other. The idea that some idiot zealot with access to the button might solve the problem – by annihilating both – once and for all never seems to occur to them.
Here’s the bottom line – defeating Republicans is an admirable goal. There’s no one more foursquare behind the idea than us, but a bad idea is a bad idea whoever comes up with it. Until now, the idea of snooping on their fellow citizens has been the clear province of Republicans. They snoop, they spy, they collect more data than they can use in 100 years – and they’re damn good at it.
But snooping is wrong. We need more protection from this sort of intrusion, not less. We’ve already slid down the slippery slope, fell off the cliff at the edge of the river, and are now floating helplessly toward Niagara Falls. One can only hope we’ll survive the fall long enough to swim to the Canadian side where, hopefully, cooler heads prevail. Eh?
It’s time for Democrats to do something they’ve been awfully loathe to do recently – stand on principle. Forget this cockamamie idea and leave the spying to Bush. We’re not foolish enough to think money is unimportant to the political process, but we’re also not foolish enough to completely abandon bedrock principles in the face of a “they did it so we have to too” mentality.
Leave that to Bush, because that’s exactly the type of reasoning that Dad and Bar imbued in the poor little bastard when he was a kid – you don’t have to follow the rules, because we’re above all that.
Crossposted on The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks!
9 Responses to “A Bad Idea Is A Bad Idea, Even If It Is Ours”
By PhiloTBG on Mar 9, 2006 | Reply
Damned straight. Here’s to remembering the value of ethical coherence in political discourse. It’s nice to be able to look yourself in the mirror and stand up for a vision of politics that actually rises to the level the American people deserve.
By The Cranky Liberal on Mar 9, 2006 | Reply
Well Poobah on one hand I agree with you. On the other hand I think reality is reality. This is simple marketing. Actually it’s micromarketing. YOu need to give the RNC strategist more credit – they look at all sorts of stats and figure stuff out. They know that people who shop in certain stores are more apt to be republican. People who buy certain cars are more likely to be anti-conservation. I mean they can narrow down based on what you do and where you go what issues appeal to you. Think of it as GoogleAds for politics. They keyword search your life. It’s scarey. But it is effective. When you can narrow your message to the items that someone is going to respond to. you get a better hit rate.
We should surely be protected from this, except the only way it’s going to happen is to get the current government out of power. For that you have to win by enough of a margin to overcome the FUD factor (and Diebold). That means you have to understand what is going to drive a higher percentage of people to the polls.
By Gayle on Mar 9, 2006 | Reply
This post is is exactly right! We should stay away from anything that resembles spying on the American public. As Cranky Liberal says, on one hand it is simple marketing. However, as much as I would like to see the GOP out of power, we don’t need to resort to their tactics to do it. That would be hypocrisy of the worst kind!
By The Cranky Liberal on Mar 9, 2006 | Reply
Well as much as we may not want to “stoop” to their level, in this the research is pretty clear cut. Target marketing works far more effectively than broad based marketing. That’s why Targeted style banner ads (and then to a much greater extent Google Ads) were far superior to the original Web ads that splattered their messgae to anyone instead of someone who might be interested. The advantages are quite clear – you are going to respond to a product, an idea, or a candidate that ties into something you already believe. They are selling candidates. It’s the same as Coke selling new Diet Black Cherry Vanilla (ok Coke send me a case please).
We can bemoan the evil Republicans and hope our side is more “noble” but the sad fact is if we waste our money and effort broadcasting our message to an unrecpetive audience, we are going to lose. This is how they overcame a lousy President, an unpopular war, crappy economics and 3 horrible debates. They focused in on what was going to get YOU to vote. Not your state. Not your city. You.
By wickedpissah on Mar 9, 2006 | Reply
I think you’re missing the whole point. The data that the DNC (and RNC) are collecting is already publicly available. Your name, address, phone number, gender, age and vote history are public record, available (I think for free) from the county clerk. Information on your spending habits, magazine subscriptions, etc… are collected (mostly unbeknownst to you) by the companies that sell you things. Why? Because they make money off of that data by selling to other people (like the RNC, or in this case Data Warehouse). Neither the GOPers or the Dems are gathering any information that’s not already out there. But by analyzing this data and leveraging it appropriately, campaigns can spend resources far more effeciently to turn supporters out to the polls on Election Day. In the 21st century, campaigns are won and lost on the quality of this data. If the GOPers have it, then we need to have it too, and better than they have it.
By The Cranky Liberal on Mar 9, 2006 | Reply
Amen Wicked.
Now if what we want to say is that companies can’t sale the data in anyway, fine. I’m there with ya man. But the info is out there. You don’t need the CIA, you need Visa or mastercard.
By Pia Savage on Mar 9, 2006 | Reply
Find it interesting that Ickes is spearheading this as in the past whenever he advised the Clintons, the results weren’t usually great. When Carville was, the results were great.
Think Ickes suffers from I never knew my daddy who was one of the prime movers to get the country out of the depression syndrome. Actually, he’s probably the sole member of that group
Do agree that there should be target marketing. and yes the info is out there. Go ED by ED in selected zip codes then get a free credit report, if the computer likes what it sees get more info
Our lives have all been public record for quite some time, but the Patriot Act does raise it 2000 thousand notches.
By Omnipotent Poobah on Mar 11, 2006 | Reply
Good discussion and valid points all. I’m afraid I didn’t change my stance though. Instead, I wrote a rebuttal post (above) to expand a little. See what you think.