microtargeting

Over the last 15 years Americans have physically sorted ourselves into cultural enclaves that share strikingly similar tastes in everything from cars and clothes to churches and politics.  Bill Bishop isn’t the first observer to point this out, but his new book The Big Sort is the deepest analysis of the phenomenon’s origins and political effects so far. 

One of the first big discussions we had on this blog was a debate over the roles of targeted micro messages and unifying macro themes and this book breaks down the demographics behind that debate. Americans have retreated into enclaves of “image tribes” as divided by geography as they are by ideas and tastes and according to Bishop, there’s very little common dialog left.

There's a lot of hype surrounding microtargeting -- which is the process of targeting voters scientifically based on consumer and demographic data. This piece in Salon yesterday on "Obama's super marketing machine" is no different. But as someone with a bit more than a passing understanding of what microtargeting is, I have to shake my head a little at articles like this. Because the media gets it almost completely wrong -- whether it's hyping relatively mundane technologies or celebrating "sexy" examples (dial up 40 year old Vodka drinking Volvo drivers!) that have almost no bearing on microtargeting's usefulness in real life. 

The Salon story is a textbook "what George Bush/Barack Obama/John McCain knows about you" approach to the topic, of the kind we've seen on a pretty regular basis since 2004. Let's start the nitpick from the beginning:

Promoted by Patrick

This is a continuation of a previous post on why it's important for the next leaders of the GOP to focus their attention on identifying local and state leaders, as well as local and state issues, to win back the middle class:

"Major league/professional sports teams have 'farm team' systems where they can identify and train prospects. The best franchises in baseball have fully developed minor league system: Red Sox, Yankees, Angels, etc. The NBA only recently saw the usefulness of having a minor league system with the NBDL ... developing the Republican Minor League will be just as important, if not more important, than keeping the Republican Major League in line."

I was interested in a couple of the responses to this post, including a comment that argues that we should try our best to run in every race as well as a promotion of Slatecard, a Red counterpart to ActBlue.

I recently received an email from The Freedom Project, the PAC that provides "assistance to Republican candidates for federal office" run by John Boehner. (They pride themselves on being a "a web-based clearinghouse for Republican activism featuring online fundraising and grassroots tools, and regular updates on key races and critical issues.") The email, called "The Candidate Kit", was giving short blurbs on energy issues and legislation in Congress and giving advice to all candidates on messaging. Example from the email:

"Democrats continue to peddle their thoroughly debunked "use it or lose it" hoax. The Wall Street Journal calls it "obviously false." [READ MORE] Investor's Business Daily debunks a number of other "energy myths," nothing that "many in Congress seem either disconneted from reality or intentionally disingenuous about our energy crunch." ALL CANDIDATES: Challenge your opponent on supporting Democrats' "drill nothing" energy policy; point out that "use it or lose it" is already law and ask them to back their claims."

The obvious benefit from this is that all candidates, incumbents and challengers, can benefit from a clearinghouse that can assist them in messaging on national issues, especially an issue as hot as energy. My concern is that we start becoming lazy like the Democrats who share and plagarize messaging across the country in congressional and senate races.

(Another view on unifying narratives vs. microtrends. -Patrick)

Patrick’s argument against a Mark Penn style microtrends approach and in favor of Obama (Axelrod) style unifying messages is spot on… but only if you’re talking about the Presidential race and to a lesser extent gubernatorial races.  

Presidential candidates get to create their own themes and realities.  They have gigantic megaphones and as we’ve seen this year, their campaigns are more earned media-centric than paid media-centric.  If a presidential candidate says something, a regular person may actually hear it every once in a while.

David All argues that the proliferation of competing “agendas” now emanating from individual Republican House members misses the point. I agree, but for very different reasons than David. His essential argument is that Republicans should ditch any hope for a Contract-style agenda:

Gone are the days of Newt Gingrich’s Contract for America, a plan which every Republican got behind and backed. A unified agenda back in 1994 was possible because of Newt Gingrich’s intoxicating personality and strong leadership style; but it was also a different time, a time before the Internet inspired a culture of choice and information.

Today, thanks to the Internet, each Member of Congress can and should be fighting in the trenches for the hundreds of issues which drive their voters to the polls under the banner of the Republican Party. The Internet provides a medium to distribute our message like never before. We can fight on thousands of fronts.

Rather than being forced to to pick a few, limited set of agenda items, House Republicans should change the game and act more like iTunes and NetFlix — offering conservative, libertarian, and independent voters a lot of different choices — all of which can only be found under the larger brand — Republican.

This overlooks the most salient example: Obama, the epitome of the new net-centric candidate. Obama has actually thrived on a very strong, unified message.