Friday, September 19, 2008

Democrats Targeting Voters the Republican Way

Christopher Stern writes for Bloomberg, Democrats Take Republican Database Model to Target Swing Voters

Harold "Ickes, a Democratic media consultant and former Clinton adviser, has spent four years and $15 million building Catalist, a database that scores 200 million Americans according to their likelihood to vote for party candidates. Illinois Senator Obama, 47, is one of his biggest clients."

"The model is VoterVault, a 12-year-old store of voter information that gave Republicans the edge in 2000 and 2004. In 2000, Bush lost the popular vote, though he carried the election by winning Florida by a margin of 537 votes out of more than 5.8 million cast. The 2004 race was equally close, with Iowa, New Mexico and even Ohio decided by less than 1 percent of the vote."

"This year, with polls again showing a tight presidential campaign, Catalist may enable Democrats to level the playing field by allowing Obama and the party's down-ticket candidates to focus on voters who will support them and ignore those who won't, he said."

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