techPresident - Patrick Ruffini - Comments

An OPEN LETTER TO Barack Obama

excelsior2008 — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:24:09 -0400

An OPEN LETTER TO Barack Obama:

>> Recent Press Reports say: Obama ridicules notion of VP slot. It's premature, he said of accepting the second spot on the ticket.

Well not really!!

You are not ready for prime time yet! A powerful VP slot would give you to exposure and maturity you need to EARN your right to hold down one of the most important jobs in the world. You have had a spectacular rise, it is true . . . leap-frogging and eloquently talking your way to where you are now.

Russian, Venezuelan, Iranian, Chinese, and Palestinian leaders will make mince meat out of you !!! If ever you ever get past McCain (which is un likely).

Just sit down and think about what the Republicans did to a true war hero in 2004, and what they did to a future Nobel Prize winner in 2000!

Join an UNstoppable Dream Team!!!

Take a STEP BACK and look at the “big picture”!!!

Barack Obama, you must work out a VP deal with a commitment (written guarantees / detailed working papers) that your role will be MUCH MORE than that of the traditional VP, much more that that of key advisor, much more that just being a key influencer on staffing of Cabinet Slots and Supreme Court appointments. You will be a truly powerful VP!

Your hubris and wit might, at this critical juncture for the Democrats, cause you and your wildly enthusiastic team of supporters to be short sighted.

Just think, if it is change that you REALLY want … would not hooking up with Hillary, bringing a huge majority into BOTH houses of Congress on your joint coat tails be the way to do it???!!!???

It is now YOUR moment . . . either seize it in an intelligent way, as a path to the white house (in 4 to 8 years), or squander it away on a miasmic dream.

For no matter who you choose for a running mate, you are doomed to failure! And even if you miraculously get into the White House, with a split do nothing Congress to work with, you will be just like Jimmy Carter. (By the way . . . I admire Jimmy, and the wild enthusiasm he also generated . . . but Jimmy has been a much better former president then president).

donors may mean LESS volunteers......

Freedomfighter — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 22:53:51 -0500

cfinnie,

I do not mean to pound you in the head, but I think Obama is over-rated and those who follow him are in for a bit of disappointment. Much of his support is the result of anti-Clinton sentiments. Some are probably giving money so they do not have to waste time at an event or to get rid of nuisance calls from the Obama movement.

When Mrs Obama referred to people's use of her husband's name as a "fear bomb", I think it largely backfired and the damage would have been worse had it received more coverage. If his name is such a problem, why didn't he change it? Americans do not name their children Adolph or Castro and people change names for far more trivial reasons, but Obama kept the name of a dictator, Hussein.

It is NOT right-wing conservatives asking these questions as they have already dismissed Obama. It is the political LEFT asking these questions. Obama's time in the spot light won't last. Money is not going to buy this election.

Donors = more than $

cfinnie — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:46:45 -0500

While, like most rules in politics, this is not always true, small donors also tend to be volunteers. Big donors drop the cash at the big events for a photo with the prez or a night in the Lincoln bedroom.

But small donors not only tend to give repeatedly, but give hours.

PACs and corporations cover their bases and give to multiple candidates. Small donors don't.

So, once a candidate has their money, he or she also has their vote, and is much more likely to have their time.

If a campaign makes it easy to write a letter, make a phone call, or talk to your neighbors--a small donor is much more apt to do so.

We know we can't fork over the big bucks. But we have time and connections and are willing to use them. That's how many of us got involved with the Dean campaign, and later in congressional races. We saw we had something to give that was just as valuable as money. We gave both. But it was the volunteer time that really hooked us in and kept us there. The Obama campaign has made good use of both and I commend them for it. They'll need both if he becomes the nominee. And they'll have them.

Of course if I remember

ChrisM — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 23:53:08 -0500

Of course if I remember correctly (and I may be wrong), the majority of Bush's donors came through Jim Rowley's direct mail program not online.

The difft fundraising emphasis between the two campaigns is one reason for different timing of 1,000,000 donor mark and more importantly a big difference in net dollars. BC04 was mailing the phone book and netting money...that said they would probably much rather have the COF of Obama's online operation...

For Comparison

Michael Turk — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 15:25:55 -0500

If you're going to compare Obama to 2004 to make the point that his donor numbers are huge, you really need to do it on an apples to apples basis. Comparing aggregated donors to non-aggregated donors is really misleading.

The Bush campaign ended the campaign with 1.2 million total donors in 2004. So the precedent for having more than 1 million total donors has already been set. Granted, Obama has done it much earlier in the cycle and as a candidate in a contested primary.

At the time the Bush campaign announced its one millionth donor, Kerry had just announced his one millionth donation so the media equated the two. Bush, however, had reached a million DONORS in the summer.

As I said, Obama's accomplishment is still impressive. He's not a sitting president, so it's likely much harder to reach a million donors in the environment he's in. However, purely as a number, it has been done before, so keep this in perspective.

Agree to diagree

echoWhiskey — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 17:57:28 -0500

While his most engaged and loyal supporters (Meetup attendees, to use an '04 example) will give multiple times, I believe that is a small percentage as compared to the drive-by donors who want to feel like they've helped. They give what they can give but that's it.

It would be interesting if we could look at his FEC report as it stands right now, because right now, we're both just speculating about the profile of his donors.

More proof of a political-religous cult??

Freedomfighter — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:58:48 -0500

Micah,
I think this is just more proof of the cult nature of Obama followers. His empty speeches won't go far in the general election. The latest Rasmussen poll shows people trust McCain over Obama when it comes to the economy, national security and Iraq. The selling of his political moniker are reminiscent of how the Nazi Party promoted the swastika. Just look at the Google ads which appear on this website. Do you really think money can buy this election or are supporters giving money to the Church of Obama????

His small donors can give again and again

Micah L. Sifry — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:57:27 -0500

I disagree. I don't think it's at all true that "most people probably give only once to a campaign." Involvement tends to spur more involvement, assuming the candidate continues to inspire support among his base (and continues to make smart, timely appeals for donations alongside other forms of volunteer engagement, like making phone calls). In 2004, many of Howard Dean's small donors become "middies" because they kept reaching into their pockets to give again and again. (One estimate of the donations made to Dean by people who attended his Meetups was they ended up giving more than $300 on average--and the more Meetups they attended, the more likely they were to give.) We've seen the same thing happen this cycle with Ron Paul's donors, many of whom have described choosing to give again and again, in tandem with their grass-roots "money bomb" efforts. Obama's million donor pool is proving to be a very deep well of support for him to tap, and when the dust settles, it's quite likely that the impact of his under $200 contributors may be a much more sizable fraction of his overall fundraising than is typical.

One large caveat

echoWhiskey — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:42:16 -0500

Obviously, this is not an apples-to-apples comparison, because when Obama reports having topped one million individual donors, the bulk of his givers are so-called "small donors" because the amounts they have donated are under $200 and therefore do not have to be itemized individually when reported to the FEC.

When you take into account that donation averages are probably well below $200 and most people probably give only once to a campaign, this statement nearly invalidates your big, bolded point.

I think Obama's million donors is impressive and truly a step forward for online politics, but let's not go overboard here.

Obama is sooo 2007

Freedomfighter — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:23:11 -0500

The youngest of voters are at risk for identity politics. Not too surprising but with Obama, his charisma has wiped out substance to the point of becoming parody. Yes! We can join the mob in believing in the audacity of false hope and no change! Yes! We can!

http://www.thepeoplescube.com/red/viewtopic.php?t=1712

As for Romney, he lost because is was largely an unknown and had too many competitors. Had some of the competitors been pruned out and then supported Romney, things would be different. Keep your eyes open, from what I understand he has not released his delegates.

Questions Lacking Organized Support

alcannistraro — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 04:18:34 -0500

What feels fair to me is that questions that have been supported by support-this video campaigns should compete only against each other, and that questions that remaimed "independent" should likewise compete only against each other (5 or 10 winners in each category). Otherwise, it would seem futile to submit a question without the backing of some organization, website, etc.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good

justin@justinhamilton.org — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:36:21 -0500

Ruffini didn't break the rules, but he did artfully game the system. While his ebay parallel is apt, there was also another opportunity to game the system a bit on the front end.

TechPresident contributor Ruby Sinrich's question on transparency (a feel good question, that is not at all partisan) was the first question added to the site. Over the first couple of days, as the buzz around the effort built, her question was the only one posted with which few could disagree, automatically delivering her over 1,000 positive votes in the first week.

In fact there was a period when her video was the only one with positive votes, and any unvoted video uploaded to the system automatically had the number 2 spot. Eventually Ruby's questions was pushed down a few spots but she still made the top 10.

You cannot discount the advantage of having video's placed in order of the number votes they garnered (unequal footing in the marketplace), because many people won't move past the first page.

While market forces are an outstanding way to aggregate crowd opinions, you need to have the same types of protections built in that the actual stock market does.

The suggestion that submissions be cut off prior to ending the voting is a smart one, though I would say you need at least a week or two. A day is not enough.

Placement on the front page (above the scroll point), should be randomized by default with the option to view videos by date, topic, votes, etc.

There should be an “overlooked” section just like the one Colaruso implemented in the original communitycounts.us effort.

10Questions wasn’t perfect. But as far as opening up the presidential debates process to the public, 10Questions is in a league of its own.

And with a few tweaks, it could be even better the next time around

-Justin

My Response to Micah

AdrianHaynes — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:06:20 -0500

Micah Sifry,

Thanks for your prompt response. I understand your side of the argument, however I would encourage you to change policy. I disagree with the other lobby efforts being similar, as there was a clear operation to undermine the system (admitted to by Patrick himself). Also, Patrick's voting assault started 6 hours before the polls were closed. All the other videos had been on the front page for weeks, which gave an adequate time for anti-lobby attempts to be organized. In 6 hours of voting his question received nearly 200 negative votes - while the previous 10 spot question received only 700 after being on the front page for over a week (300 of which likely came from Patrick's crowd as when i checked on the 14th, it was only at 400 negative votes).

If this particular case is allowed, it will be attempted again in the future, and if nothing is changed, successfully. The quality of the questions will suffer greatly, and the questions asked will voted on solely lobby efforts, with the weight of the content of the question being tossed out. Its wishful thinking that in a country with such a lousy voter turn out, that a community can develop that will have the time to be watch dogs on 10questions (i personally think that the near 200 voted down on Patrick's question was admirable vigilance of the community, considering the response time available).

So here are some suggestions to protect the quality of questions in the future.

1) Show more videos on the front page - the top 20 - only having 2 questions not in the top 10 shown gives less exposer time to last minute lobbies.

2) Have a cut off - 2 days before voting ends, limit the voting to the top 20 videos - or subject videos that moved into the top 10 in the final few days to an extra week of voting.

3) LET THE PEOPLE VOTE ON THIS! If the people want stricter rules to protect against last minute lobbies, let them have it - if they don't - keep it as is.

Thanks for this post

Patrick Ruffini — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:02:09 -0500

In a continued spirit of transparency, let me suggest one method you could have used to "defeat" my methodology: close the question submission period before the end of the voting period. This probably would have given the votes on my question ample time to "correct" themselves.

As you say, though, this leads to a slippery slope whose effect over the long run is to chill participation. You need ever more complex methods to defeat ever more sophisticated attempts to vote up questions. And there is probably no way you could defeat a MoveOn or an American Family Association, with 3M+ email lists, if they decided to ask their members to vote up a question in unison -- no matter when they did it.

I will say I find the reaction to this pretty interesting. When MoveOn sent an email to a segment of its list promoting the net neutrality question (which remains the #1 question), there was hardly a peep of complaint from the user base and the tone of the explanation did nothing to raise questions about the fairness of the process:

What happened? Several different advocacy campaigns, each on behalf of a particular question, joined in the conversation. A new video asking about net neutrality was posted, and from what we understand, MoveOn.org sent out an email to about 60,000 of its member activists urging them to vote for it. Obviously, a lot of people did, as that video rose to the top (with more than 5,000 net positive votes as of now). MySpace/MTV will be playing it for Senator Obama to answer during today's webcast (1:30pm EST), which will also be aired on MTV tonight at 7pm.

But that's not where all the traffic came from or went. The current #2 question on the site, about medical marijuana, has benefited from the advocacy of the Marijuana Policy Project and its grassroots supporters. (See here for one example.) Same with the current #3 question, on warrantless wiretapping, which the folks at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have been telling their activists about.

It's great to see this kind of participation on the site, and we're hoping to see a lot more of it. Remember, if you think a question doesn't deserve to be in the top ten, you can vote it down. And if you think a question deserves more attention, you can use our email and embed tools to tell other people about it and/or post it on your own site. That's what blogger Jamie Bernstein is doing here, promoting a question about atheism and the Supreme Court. (emphasis added)

It's also interesting that questions fueled primarily by advocacy campaigns that were once #1, 2, and 3 ended up as #1, 4, and 5. That I can find, no one found these concerted campaigns troubling -- and the longer voting period (the solution your correspondent suggests) did nothing to dislodge these questions from the top 10.

It's certainly possible my question could have survived a longer period on the top 10. It had a bit of a libertarian streak that could have earned support from Ron Paul supporters. The very early voting for it (before I did anything to push it) was 2-to-1 in favor.

But for the purposes of this experiment -- undertaken to see how a minority group could effectively mobilize when outnumbered -- I wasn't going to leave anything to chance.

Hey thanks...

Arlen — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 13:48:56 -0400

Thanks for your coverage of this, it's been really great.

Check out my political blog, TheDailyBackground.com