Politics: November 2008 Archives

UPDATED: DECEMBER 1, 2008 AT 18:42

"Our Politicians Fiddle as Innocents Die," blared the Times of India newspaper on Sunday as the political recriminations began in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks in Mumbai. The headline coincided with the resignation of India's highest-ranking internal security official, who said he was taking "moral" responsibility for the tragedy.

While the country's black-cat commandos have been largely commended for their work in the street-to-street (and sometimes room-to-room) combat with the assailants, the Indian intelligence, counter terrorism and surveillance services faced almost immediate criticism for allowing the attacks to happen in the first place.  There are even reports that the government had advance warning.

All of this sounds eerily reminiscent.  The early reporting from India suggests that national governments have not learned the lessons from the failures of earlier targets of terrorism.

It is worth saying out loud that the strengths and weaknesses of the evolving media landscape were also on full public view during this latest tragedy, marking an evolution that can be traced back to natural disasters (hurricanes on the gulf coast of this country or the Asian tsnami) if not before.

Consider stories that were published and posted while Mumbai was still under siege. NPR introduced its listeners to Sreenath Sreenivasan, a journalist who also serves as dean of student affairs at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.  Within in an hour of learning of the Mumbai attacks, Sreenivasan "was hosting a Web radio call-in show with other Indian journalists relaying what they knew."  It was the meeting of old and media, with the conventions of journalism tempering the noise that inevitably follows shocking developments.

Elsewhere, a Reuters dispatch reported, "Bloggers across Mumbai fed live updates ... [on the] ...attacks in the heart of India's financial capital, highlighting the social media's new expanding role in news coverage."  It pointed to photos of the attacks on Flikr, frequent updates of an entry on Wikipedia, a steady stream of updates and comments on twitter and myriad bloggers doing what they could to help.  Clearly, these Web 2.0 technologies are as effective as anything we have seen in terms of immediacy -- a particularly powerful attribute when they are in the hands of those on the ground with unique, authoratative information.  

But, and there is are two big buts here: (a) precious few bloggers and even microbloggers are that close and that relevant, prefering instead the comfort of home half way around the world (present company included); and, (b) something disturbing happened to embedded links as they aged.  Dina Mehta blogged furiously from Mumbai during the siege, originally describing herself as "upset and angry and bereft."  But by Sunday night, visitors to her blog learned that she had grown weary of a secondary problem -- inappropriate and even abusive speech. 

In a helpful clarification (including a corrected URL for her post) to the original version of this post, Mehta wrote me: 

I have only been deleting some comments for this reason as stated in my blogpost: "I'm getting a huge load of comments around the politics of religion, of division and hate at my last few posts on the Mumbai terror attacks. While religion and politics may have a lot to do with the state of our world today, my blog's not the forum to air or feed these divisions. I almost feel it's a violation of my own person. So I am deleting them. Sorry. All other comments and conversations are welcome, as always! The #Mumbai Twitter feed is now flooded with them too. I'm stopping watching it. I'm certainly not playing. For all those who feel they have lots to say - I'd recommend they do something more constructive. Start by reading Ingrid Srinath's post titled This is not India's 9/11 ... and Priyanka Joshi's comments there."

[See comments for full text.]

Another blogger, Gaurav Mishra responded to Mehta's decision by setting out a multipoint plan for confronting extremest commentary.  Citizen journalism has no conventions to guide it, and those that comment are prepared to say almost anything under the veil of anonymity.

[As if to remind us of those things at which Web 2.0 is particularly good, Mishra provides links to events or movements spontaneously conceived on or through the Web to benefits of victims of the 11/26 terrorist attacks -- some local, others global -- Nov 30 Tweetup at Leopold Cafe, Facebook Wear White Event, Facebook Support 11/26 Fighters Event.]

At the risk of making a snap judgment even as the events of last week are still unwinding, the response and the reportage were both only partial successes.  Honoring those who served well is important but taking a hard look at what failed may be where the greatest value lies.  It is the only way to perfect or reform institutions about which we care -- government, media and that still amorphous thing called Web 2.0.

A final note.  There is another post about Mumbai that I struggled to write over the long Thanksgiving weekend.  I couldn't get it right.  Thankfully, CBC essayist Rex Murphy did:

We should not see what happened ... in India - what is happening - as something in a distant country, but as a chilling and depraved assault on on what all decent people share in common.

Terrorism is the murder of innocents as a tactic in the service of fanaticism. It is the anti-politics of our time. It is a threat to us all. The blast was in Mumbai, but its vibrations are meant for every civilized city of the planet.

... It is merely right therefore that we give our thoughts to their particular plight - and offer - to these, our fellow citizens - our alert and full sympathy.

A bipartisan and independent California state agency is recommending further consolidation of the state's information technology infrastructure, assets and staff under the state CIO.  The Little Hoover Commission, in an ironically-named report called  A New Legacy System: Using Technology to Drive Performance, recommends:

Empower the state chief information officer with tools and resources to oversee a generational transformation of information technology in state government. The state must consolidate resources under the Office of the State Chief Information Officer, including the Department of Technology Services, the Office of Systems Integration, geospatial information functions and the information security functions of the Office of Information Security and Privacy Protection.

Use public money for technology projects responsibly and with transparency.
To rebuild the confidence of the Legislature and the public, the process through which California's technology projects are governed must be open and transparent. The Information Technology Council should expand to include legislative members as well as members from existing technology councils, and it should be empowered to prioritize overall technology projects for the state and aggressively monitor their implementation. The state chief information officer should regularly report on the progress of the state's information technology projects through a more robust Web site.

Use technology to track, measure and improve performance.
The state should encourage and foster the burgeoning development of performance measurement projects throughout state departments and agencies by re-establishing the technology innovation fund and creating opportunities to regularly integrate performance data into the state's management and budgeting strategy. The governor should hold regular public meetings with agency heads to evaluate performance data.

Even while tacitly recognizing that these changes will be difficult and take time, the Commission points to a new model for IT governance as key to a more effective fiscal management in the long run.

In the name of full disclosure, I was one of many who provided testimony to the Commission and worked with its staff in the preparation of the report.  To read the full text of the report, download it here -- LittleHoover.pdf .

There is a conventional wisdom among public employees: vote your job.  That usually means voting for the incumbent whose administration signs your paycheck rather than the challenger who ran on a platform of eliminating government waste, which could include your job.

It is a different story around the cabinet table, where the members are supposed to be the first choice of the appointing authority.  When the appointing authority changes, and when there is a change in party, resignation seems obvious.

There is sometimes a case to be made for retention over a political transition.  The speculation about the possibility that Defense Secretary Bob Gates would be held over by the incoming Obama administration is a case in point.

Sometimes continuity matters, sometimes there is a non partisan path forward, sometimes the plan is working, and sometimes the incumbent is uniquely credible in the community of interest such that spanning changes in appointing authority and even party make sense.

With eight of the eleven gubertorial elections on Tuesday night returning incumbents for another term, the issue of transitions may not seem relevant.  But returning governors often see the new term as exactly that - new.

Re-election forces soul searching and a hard look of what worked and what didn't. What remains undone and will the current strategies and players get them to done? In such circumstances, legacy becomes more important than continuity.  

It takes little intuition to figure out whether you are part of the next administration when the call comes thanking you for your service, couched in some awkward talk about going in a new direction.  

But what if doing the right thing for the good of the order comes down to your own initiative?  It may be helpful to see yourself as others do.

• When the track record of projects has been obfuscated to mask overruns in cost, time and scope, or bug lists are kept from partner agencies to save face, it is time to write that letter.
• When you have earned a reputation as a hatchet person, because the person who dismantles a program is rarely the right person to build a new one, it is time to write that letter.
• When you do not have a good and clearly stated answer to the simple question, what's next?, it is time to write that letter.
• If you have never been caught making a decision, it is time to write that letter.
• If you have a customer base of only one -- the appointing authority -- it is time to write that letter.  (Conversely, if you covertly complain about the appointing authority to curry favor with customer agencies, it is time to write that letter.)
• If you spent the good old days marginalizing people whose help you could now use to work through the hard times, it is time to write that letter.
  

An old friend taught me a long time ago that success in this business is based on competence and trust.  If that is not the way you are seen up, down and across the organization, it is time to write that letter.

Do it.  Now.

If journalism is still the first draft of history, it is understandable that President-elect Barack Obama dominates the post-election coverage.  The Spectator's blog on all things American has compiled a long list of potential cabinet picks for the Obama Administration -- it is as speculative as any other such list but it provides a clue as to how intently overseas observers are watching every move of the incoming administration.

But there were other personalities in play, including eleven governors.  Here is the briefest of summaries:

Delaware, where it is good to be first (constitutionally): Upstart Jack Markell (D) will replace a fellow Democrat Ruth Ann Minner who was prevented from running for re-election by term limits.  Markell's predecessor was quietly effective in making technologies work for the disproportionately older population of her small state.  It is a good foundation and thoughtful strategy on which to build.

Indiana: Mitch Daniels (R) won re-election in a landslide, an exception to his party's performance elsewhere in the country.  During his first term, Daniels increased infrastructure spending from $244 million in FY05 to more than $867 million in 2007.

Missouri: State Attorney General Jay Nixon (D) will succeed Gov. Matt Blunt, the 38 year old Republican incumbent who decided not to run for a second term earlier this year.  Nixon's campaign centered on what the New York Times called "a scathing critique of Republican control," making continuity through the transition unlikely.

Montana: The iconoclastic Brian Schweitzer (D), who gained national attention for his opposition to REAL ID as a reckless unfunded federal mandate, and who has worked to increase energy production (oil, wind and electricity) at home, won re-election by a wide margin.

New Hampshire: John Lynch (D) easily won re-election by landslide proportions, despite claims by his opponent that the state was losing its New England charm under Lynch's leadership.

North Carolina: Beverly Perdue (D) will build on a sixteen year run during which Democrats have held the governors office.  North Carolina's leadership in the process of becoming digital has ebbed and flowed over the years, perhaps the reflection of strong personalities that pioneered the move into the Internet era and enterprise architecture.  Those initiatives helped earn NC a Top 10 finish in 2004, a full 12 positions higher than where the state has been in both the 2006 and 2008 Digital States rankings -- 22.

North Dakota, which made a six position upward move to 17th place in the 2008 Digital States survey: John Hoeven (R) told reporters that re-election would bring with it a continued emphasis on economic development, particularly through the state's "Centers of Excellence program, an initiative that ties the state's universities to the private sector in order to create higher-paying jobs and new business opportunities for North Dakotans."

Utah, which earned the top ranking in the 2008 Digital States survey: In another counter trend Republican landslide, Jon Huntsman (R) won re-election by a large margin.  Known for his pragmatic approach, Huntsman pioneered an energy-saving four day work week for state employees and where, by design, online self service ensures no loss in public service.

West Virginia: Joe Manchin (D) easily won re-election to a second term, running a track record of infrastructure investments, cutting the size of state government employment two years in a row, and saving as much as $350 million in government reform and streamlining initiatives.

Washington, which placed fifth in the 2008 Digital States rankings: Christine Gregoire (D) has apparently defeated former state senator Dino Rossi (R) in a rematch of a contentious and almost-too-close-to-call election in 2004.  The incumbent governor made an acceptance speech based on declarations by the AP and other media organizations but without benefit of a concession speech by her challenger.  The Rossi campaign says it will make a statement on the race on Wednesday afternoon.  The margins in key counties are wider for Gregoire this time around, making the multiple recounts and court challenge that delayed a final judgement in 2004 unlikely.

What remains unchanged is what Digital Communities blogger Bill Schrier forecasts as "an agonizing election week [ahead] as King County (Seattle) slowly and painfully counts its ballots." Schrier says a little technology could go a long way toward shortening the count, and making it more accurate.  And while he says there is plenty of blame to be assigned to King County itself, the Luddite-like disposition of a little known federal agency is not helping.

With a rough and tumble campaign behind her, Gregoire promised progress on creating a sustainable economy in the self described evergreen state, "It will be green, clean and the envy of the world."

UPDATE AT 11:43 AM: Saying "we just couldn't make up the gap," Republican challenger Dino Rossi conceded the governor's race to the incumbent.

Vermont: Jim Douglas (R) won re-election to his fourth term as governor.  Douglas ran, in part, on the state's "e-State Initiative [which] is already helping to achieve my goal of creating a universal network of high speed wireless phone and internet services that reaches every corner of our state by the end of 2010."

"The polls are tightening," was the almost universal caveat repeated by cable news talking heads in the final countdown to the only poll that matters -- today's general election.  It is an open question whether "tightening" could be used as a synonym or euphemism for skewing.

Others have written widely about the so-called Bradley Effect, which as described by TIME magazine, is a "theory holds that voters have a tendency to withhold their leanings from pollsters when they plan to vote for a white candidate instead of a black one."  In March, a Pew Research study purported to identify the presence of both a Bradley Effect and a Reverse Bradley effect, the latter of which would advantage an African-American candidate.  

An editorial in this morning's Los Angeles Times is skeptical about the Bradley Effect's existence, and even it does, whether it will have a role in Obama's fortunes.  In dismissing it as a myth, the LA Times observes that demography and technology may be part of the effect's undoing:

[T]his election may feature a jump in the number of younger voters who cast ballots. They appear to tilt heavily toward Obama and are more likely to rely on cellphones, which pollsters have yet to figure out how to contact. Thus any racists who conceal themselves from pollsters may be counterbalanced by voters who are simply unavailable to them.

The dead space between public opinion pollsters and cell phone users -- particularly the one in three American households that have cell phones to the exclusion of land lines (according to a recent CDC-commissioned survey) -- could be the source of surprises of its own.

Consider the possibility of a reverse Dewey effect. Gov. Thomas Dewey of New York is best remembered from a headline that became a punchline -- DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.

There are a number of explanations for the mistaken headline.  A printer's strike at The Chicago Tribune forced the paper to go to press an hour earlier than usual, before the actual ballot count was available.

The Tribune had been dismissive of Dewey but new fangled public opinion polling had helped convince its editors that Dewey had a significant advantage heading into election day.  The telephone was at the heart of the new fangeld polling methods. But pollsters were only able to reach people who could actually afford telephones, who were overwhelmingly Republicans, and who overwhelmingly favored Dewey.

Fast forward to today and the ubiquity of cell phones whose users are out of reach of pollsters.  Given what we know -- or what we think we know -- about the socio economic profile of cell phone users and young voters, we could see a Reverse Dewey Effect in tonight's results.

The suddenly conservative pundits who say the polls are tightening could be right.  But if they are wrong, and the margins are wider than expected, the credit (or the blame) could belong a Reverse Dewey Effect and those pesky cell phones.  To echo the LA TImes on that 'other' effect, it is not "so much that respondents lie to pollsters as that pollsters can't know what they don't know to look for."

With only one day remaining in the presidential election campaign, as many as a third of eligible voters have already cast their votes through absentee, mail-in and early voting.  There are reports that Senators McCain and Obama will both break with tradition by campaigning on election day.  At issue, voter turnout.

Political organizing is powered by hybrid systems that combine aspects of data integration, customer relationship management and business intelligence for political purposes: canvassing and voter contact on the front lines, and casework, donor, field, membership and volunteer management in the background.

The names of the systems have changed over years and their design, architecture and functions have been imporved but the underlying purpose remains the same.  The RNC's Voter Vault, a web-based tool is now in its third release; and the Voter Activation Network (VAN) replaced Demzilla and is the platform behind the DNC's VoteBuilder, the Obama campaign's volunteer management system, and the organizing tools used by organized labor (AFL-CIO and the SEIU) among others.

It brought to mind a chestnut from the archives about the business intelligence systems used by the two major parties to get out the vote (GOTV):

"Too close to call."  It was David Brinkley's election night epitaph to the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon match up; as it was for Peter Jennings forty years later during the long Florida night that left the Bush-Gore contest in dispute.

With results that were within the margin of error of manual, mechanical and digital vote counts, the television networks reworked their outdated predictive models and Congress - through the Help America Vote Act - set a timetable for the introduction of electronic voting machines, which will be in limited release this year in anticipation of a full roll out in 2006.  Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines are the new hanging chads of American politics, sparking a debate over disenfranchisement amid concerns about validating that every vote is counted as it was cast. 

If the e-voting debate is over which votes are counted, the full up implementation of CRM in presidential politics raises equally important questions about which votes are cast.  Complex and highly partisan Customer Relationship Management is being deployed by both major parties to help tip election results in their favor, district by district, mobilizing their respective bases and wooing fickle swing voters.

The Democratic National Committee has built Demzilla with demographic, geographic and psychographic data on 158 million Americans; the Republican National Committee has locked up the same kinds of data on 165 million Americans its Voter Vault.  Given the sensitivity of the information that they contain, it belies otherwise sophisticated political apparatuses that both systems have been christened with names that are, at once, sophomoric and Orwellian.  What's more, after limited use in local and state races, Demzilla and Voter Vault go head to head it their first presidential throw down next month.

The number of names is less important than the contextual data that wraps around each name.  "We have a numeric coding system," explained Washington state Republican chairman Chris Vance in a recent interview about the vault, "One is a hard Republican.  Two is a soft Republican.  Three is an independent.  Four is a soft Democrat.  Five is a hard Democrat.  Six is someone who we reached, but refused to answer our questions.  A zero is someone we have never been able to reach, we know nothing about."

The first five categories bring a certain scientific precision to the art of mobilizing the base - but the political prize is in converting zeros to partisans by election night.  And that puts political CRM in the cross hairs of the same groups that have targeted e-voting as a threat to democracy.

At issue are the inferences that can be drawn from the manipulation of previously discrete data elements including all the usual stuff about who we are and how to reach us plus inferences gleaned from our reading habits and organizational affiliations.  Layer on the answers to the questions about whether we vote and make political contributions (derived from secondary use of public records) and our views on war, gun ownership and abortion (which we may volunteer to the earnest, PDA-touting campaign volunteer at our door) and we end up with targeted messages that serve up 'my president, my way,' apparently unaware that they look different to people that have been placed in one of the other buckets.

One academic observer has gone so far as to condemn the parties' segmentation strategies because he claims they are not just correlated to, but the cause of, a precipitous fall in voter participation.  Curiously, the complaint does not appear to extend to the legion of advocacy groups that use the same methods, punctuated by media campaigns and even lines of clothing, to convert non-voters to political participants.

This could all be a hideously bad idea.  Or it could be a defining characteristic of a new civic engagement that solves some old problems while creating new ones.  A century ago, Edward Berneys, alternatively known as the father of American public relations or propaganda, envisioned manipulating public opinion as an "unseen mechanism of society [that] constitutes an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.  A generation ago, we came to accept a seemingly progressive idea that the "personal is political."  Now, we have systems that automate both.

And if this year's election is again too close to call, the winners will know they are onto something.  And so will the losers.

The original column appeared as "Political CRM: Swing voters and the systems that love them" in Government Technology magazine in October 2004.