Two Tech Savvy Parties

This week's New York Times Magazine's cover story is about the push in the GOP to catch up with the Democratic Party in data driven campaigning. It describes the Obama Campaign's superior use of data in targeting and tailoring ads and get out the vote efforts. In one example, "Obama operation. . . enlisted Rentrak, the data corporation for satellite and cable companies, through which it accrued an entirely new layer of information about each and every consumer, giving the campaign the ability to customize cable TV ads." One staffer of the Romney campaign stated of their data efforts: "They were playing chess while we were playing checkers."

Modern campaigns, in order to win, must do the same microtargeting that Facebook has implemented to raise ad clicks. This means that campaigns must gather as much information as possible about not just groups of the electorate, but more importantly individual voters. This will inevitably raise the same privacy concerns as other tracking on TV and the internet. 

 

This led me to think about two potential policy consequences of two tech savvy parties, one positive and one (potentially) negative. First, a positive shift: if having a modern data driven campaign is a prerequisite for victory, I think we will see both parties be more familiar with tech issues once the candidates get to Washington. I can't imagine a Ted Steven's "the internet is a series of tubes" winning in this modern election environment. Tech issues are complicated, and we've seen our traditional notions of privacy being wholly inadequate to deal with modern technological capabilities. If courts are hesitant to update privacy law in fear of judicial activism, we need a legislative body that is attuned to technological innovations.

However, on the other hand, if you a voter who is wary of the amount of tracking on the internet, you may see this as a negative development. It takes tracking and tailoring to win big elections, candidates who are opposed to such tracking on the internet and on TV cannot win. It reminds me of Super Pacs: if you can't win without them, how can you be opposed to them once you get congress or the white house? If modern campaign ads and GOTV rely on data collection, creating policy that puts a ceiling on that collection or implementing some European style protections seems even more politically unlikely.