How the Obama Campaign Leverages Big Data to Political Advantage

Big Data and the Individual

It is generally agreed that Barack Obama won the 2008 Democratic presidential primary through his shrewd use of social media, a massive volunteer effort, and sophisticated data analysis. His 2012 re-election drive has resorted to similar tactics, except not as many unpaid true believers are working on 44's behalf. However, according to a story in today's online editions of the Financial Times, big data is doing a lot of heavy lifting for President Obama's campaign.

Take time to read the feature piece. It's a fascinating window into modern persuasion campaigns and deftly underlines just how much personal data is available on the average citizen. It's not as if Obama volunteers are knocking on the doors of reclusive one-percenters. Also take time to ponder why Obama and his data exploiters went to Silicon Valley, as the FT story observed, to learn the ropes of big-league data mining. Does this sound like the tactics of someone who respects individual rights and the right to privacy?