No, That Research Does Not Suggest Online Voter Registration Could Reduce Turnout
BY Nick Judd | Wednesday, August 29 2012
Research described yesterday as indicating that online voter registration could reduce turnout actually says nothing of the sort. Read More
The Digital Pros to Meet at the Republican National Convention
BY Sarah Lai Stirland and Nick Judd | Monday, August 27 2012
Photo: Joshua Barajas / PBS NewsHour
Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus subscribers: By the end of Monday Tampa, Fla., will be full up with Republicans planning to converge on its Tampa Bay Times Forum for their national convention. Among the scores of convention delegates, lobbyists, political operatives and campaigning candidates will be a host of digital campaigners — both longtime pros in the emerging field and up-and-comers hoping to ply their trade.
For Personal Democracy Plus subscribers, here's the beginning of what could be a far longer list of digital pros going to Tampa this week and worth seeking out for coffee or a beer — just a few of the names you might know, or should know, when it comes to the right's digital communications. We did our best to prime the pump with a mix of people who you might already know from CNN and people who have been working busily behind the scenes.
Read MoreMeet the White House Presidential Innovation Fellows
BY Nick Judd | Thursday, August 23 2012
The White House this morning announced the 18 techies and experts who will spend six months working on one of five projects using technology to try and improve government as part of the White House Presidential Innovation Fellows program. Read More
Obama Campaign Announces Text Donations Are Online Beginning This Week
BY Nick Judd | Thursday, August 23 2012
The Obama campaign announced this morning that it has begun offering supporters the opportunity to send donations via text message. Beginning with Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and U.S. Cellular customers starting this week, supporters can give small donations — up to $50 a month for most carriers, according to a release from the campaign — by texting "GIVE" to a five-digit shortcode number put into use by the campaign. Read More
A Former White House Videographer Critiques Paul Ryan's Way with the Camera
BY Nick Judd | Wednesday, August 22 2012
Buried at the end of Nancy Scola's really quite good take on former White House videographer Arun Chaudhary's book and his work as the first-ever full-time cameraman to the President of the United States is Chaudhary's take on that other famously charismatic guy in this election, congressman and vice-presidential selection Paul Ryan. Read More
Quantifying this Year's "Lame" Presidential Campaign
BY Nick Judd | Thursday, August 16 2012
Illustration: David Colarusso
According to data from The 4th Estate Project, produced by former Neiman Fellow Bryan Rich and software developer Michael Howe, seventeen percent of statements attributed to the Obama campaign or the White House in a campaign story come without a person's name attached. Likewise, nobody is named as responsible for twenty-one percent of Romney campaign statements. These exclude statements from the candidates themselves. These figures are released exclusively to techPresident as disappointment mounts among political observers at the focus in this presidential campaign on personal attacks and relatively narrow issues. Read More
In an Email "Mistake," a New York Campaign Takes a Rival's Name in Vain
BY Nick Judd | Tuesday, August 14 2012
New York State Senator Greg Ball's re-election campaign is caught up in a web peccadillo that might put Ball on the wrong side of a law he himself supported.
Our friend at Capital New York, Azi Paybarah, reports that Ball's campaign sent out an email in the name of Justin Wagner, a Westchester attorney and Ball's Democratic opponent. The campaign told the Journal News that putting Wagner's name in the "from" field was a mistake corrected in subsequent emails, Paybarah notes. The email linked to a website, Wackywagner.com, full of less-than-flattering prose about Wagner.
Wagner is asking the district attorney's office to investigate the email, to which a 2008 change in the law — one that happened with Ball's support — seems relevant.
Read MoreIs Crowdfunding the Right Way to Pay for Public Space?
BY Nick Judd | Monday, August 13 2012
In Ohio, Obama's Campaign "Dashboard" a Hard Sell for Some Volunteers
BY Nick Judd and Nataliya Nedzhvetskaya | Friday, August 10 2012
Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus subscribers: TechPresident took a look at how volunteers in the key swing state of Ohio are using Dashboard, the Obama campaign's online organizing hub. While volunteers are signing up at a steady pace, some of the volunteers who signed up for the platform are waiting in vain for someone to connect them with the campaign. Others, already comfortable with campaign techniques they developed in 2008 or earlier, or uncomfortable with technology, are largely ignoring Dashboard. Read More
NGP VAN's New Hire Moved From NationBuilder
BY Nick Judd | Wednesday, August 8 2012
John Brougher was NationBuilder's sales director, managing relationships with clients that use the online organizing platform. Now he's vice president of marketing and nonprofit sales at NGP VAN, the large field organizing and fundraising software vendor for progressives. Read More