I think it is a mistake to place much credence in IT spend or performance as a metric for success in political campaigns.
As I despise the platforms and approaches of both Obama and Romney, I think I can speak more directly to the impact of IT - basically nil. All politics is local, and it looks as if Obama had more feet on the street, more door knockers, and more appeal to the plebians in his platform. Romney's message and approach was simply wrong for the campaign - too elitist and no specifics for people to rally around. Given that Obama spent twice the money on the campaign, and had half the IT spend, I'd say that Obama's ability to spend money elsewhere, particularly in local GOTV efforts, was much more telling. Kurt On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 10:33 AM, Andrew S. Baker <[email protected]> wrote: > In a sense, the campaigns' differing IT strategies mirrored their different > political philosophies. Romney essentially outsourced everything (just as he > favors outsourcing many governmental functions), while Obama's campaign > relied more heavily on his staff (just as he favors relying on government > itself to perform many vital services). In this case, at least, in-house > expertise trumped outsourcing, and proved to be more agile and flexible as > well. > > http://blogs.computerworld.com/windows/21376/obamas-tech-team-used-open-source-and-some-microsoft-software-fuel-its-victory > > > Without getting caught up in the politics, this to me speaks more to the > need to closely manage technology resources in order to get significant > benefit. > > You could argue that it is an indictment against outsourcing, but I'd say > it's more so an indictment against careless technology managment -- whether > insourcing or outsourcing. After all, the Obama team made quite a bit of > use of cloud computing, which itself is a form of outsourcing. > > -ASB: http://XeeMe.com/AndrewBaker > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > > --- > To manage subscriptions click here: > http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ > or send an email to [email protected] > with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
