Databases for the Democrats

I came across this interesting article in the Post today regarding infighting about whether a private firm or the DNC should create a new, comprehensive database to profile and target Democratic voters for GOTV and other efforts.

Because Shayna Englin (another ROHer) knows so much about this kind of thing, I sent her the article, asking her for her opinion. She wrote me back in her usual thorough, well-informed style. It was so helpful, that I asked her if I could put the exchange in ROH. She said yes. Here's what she told me:


"I think the DNC shouldn't be so territorial about the voter file. I
think it's difficult to argue that 1) we aren't light years behind the
GOP in terms of voter file technology, 2) even if we catch up on the
technology front, we don't have any coherent strategy for using that
technology to good effect, and 3) even if we develop a killer
strategy, we don't have the infrastructure of people on the ground to
implement it.

The DNC should let Ickes, et al, dump the money into the technology
end to address problem number one, while the DNC targets resources
toward strategy and implementation capacity to address problems two
and three. If Ickes, or any of the other half-dozen entities working
on it, are successful on the technology end, the DNC can contract for
it.

The GOP has been so much more succcessful at this in no small part
because they understand that top-down is not generally the best way to
arrive at the most innovative, effective, or efficient ways forward.
They've let a thousand flowers bloom, tested the most promising
approaches in off-year and down-state elections across the country,
and then invested heavily into the ones that prove best.
The DNC, on the other hand, has done the opposite - invested heavily
in what they think/hope is the one best approach, tested it
haphazardly in a big national election, and then, finding that the
approach they'd championed is unsuccessful, invested heavily in the
next interesting idea.

Aside from the internal politics, on the question of whether we should
be micro-targeting based upon publicly available but still creepy
personal information about voters: I say resoundingly, uncomfortably,
YES. If we don't, we will lose."