"In late 2002, Alex Gage sold his share of a well-established polling firm and set about convincing Karl Rove that he had the answer to ensuring President Bush's reelection.
"His pitch was simple: Take corporate America's love affair with learning everything it can about its customers, and its obsession with carving up the country into smaller and smaller clusters of like-minded consumers, and turn those trends into a political strategy. The Bush majority would be made up of thousands of groups of like-minded voters whom the campaign could reach with precisely the right message on the issues they considered most important.
"At first, Rove and campaign manager Ken Mehlman had doubts about the potential of microtargeting, according to Bush pollster Matthew Dowd."
...
"[But] it wasn't long before this new, more sophisticated form of data mining became part of the mythology surrounding Rove and his role as 'the architect' of Bush's reelection. Its use in Ohio, in particular, was credited with unearthing Bush supporters and delivering the state and the election to him.
"Now Gage is working for another Republican presidential candidate entranced by the possibilities of microtargeting – Mitt Romney. A Harvard Business School graduate who went on to head Bain Capital, Romney has made a point of adapting modern business techniques to politics, and it was in his successful 2002 campaign to be governor of Massachusetts that Gage's methods were first tried.
"'The governor believes in accountability, benchmarks and metrics,' said Beth Myers, Romney's campaign manager, explaining his interest in microtargeting. 'He believes in using data when it comes to making decisions.'"
...
"The more information he has, the better he can group people into 'target clusters' with names such as 'Flag and Family Republicans' or 'Tax and Terrorism Moderates.' Once a person is defined, finding the right message from the campaign becomes fairly simple.
"'Flag and Family Republicans' might receive literature on a flag-burning amendment from its sponsor, while 'Tax and Terrorism Moderates' get an automated call from [former New York mayor] Rudy Giuliani talking about the war on terror, even if they lived right next door to one another,' Alex Lundry, the senior research director of TargetPoint -- the firm Gage founded in 2003 -- wrote recently in Winning Campaigns magazine."
...
"And in a presidential primary, in which voters are far more homogenous than in a general election, can microtargeting find meaningful distinctions between groups? Gage and Romney are convinced that it can."
...
"Gage said that when he pitched microtargeting to the Harvard MBAs advising Romney in his gubernatorial campaign, they were stunned that the idea had never been used in politics. 'You guys don't do this already?' they asked, according to Gage."
...
"Michael Murphy, then Romney's campaign strategist, became intrigued by the high number of independent voters in Massachusetts, seeing them as the key to winning in a Democratic stronghold. He sought out Gage for help.
"'I wanted to break the independent-voter file into target segments and Alex's approach was the best way to do it, so I reached out to Alex and we, along with Tagg Romney and Alex Dunn of the Romney staff, sort of invented microtargeting in that race,' Murphy said.
"What did they find?
"That a 32-year-old white Protestant woman with two children and a retired Roman Catholic male engineer – while both independents – were driven by often contradictory issues, Murphy said. 'Some independents are more base Republican – like, some are pure fiscal [voters], some are focused on education,' he added.
"All of this seems somewhat straightforward."
...
"But, he added, the key insight of political microtargeting is that, rather than simply determining whether married men are more likely than unmarried women to support a candidate, a campaign can identify segments within larger demographic groups and tailor messages down to the household level – an extraordinary amount of precision that helps turn a guessing game into a series of targeted strikes."
...
"The first step in doing this is conducting a large survey of voters. By matching up their political views with detailed information about their consumer habits, a model is established that can be applied to the population as a whole.
"A campaign would then know which issues are important to an unmarried woman who subscribes to Outside magazine and is a frequent flier, and how they are different from issues important to an unmarried woman who has two grown children, uses corrective lenses and is an AARP member -- even if they are next-door neighbors."
...
"What [Gage] does is as much art as science, and he never stops tinkering with his models. 'Part of the challenge is to constantly attack what you're doing and try to do it better,' he said."
...
"Eighteen months ago, Gage made the trip up to Boston to meet with Myers. At a Beacon Hill restaurant, the two old friends chatted about Romney's potential as a presidential candidate and microtargeting's ability to help deliver him the GOP nomination.
"Over the next months, Gage and Myers talked from time to time about how microtargeting might best be used to make a difference in a presidential primary. One Saturday last fall, Myers, Gage and Will Feltus, a member of National Media Inc., the company that handles Romney's advertising, gathered for a final bull session.
"At issue was whether microtargeting could find meaningful – and measurable – differences in a primary electorate that was Republican to begin with and similar in its demographic and ideological traits. After hashing out the details on maps and graphs, Myers and the rest of the Romney team reached a decision. 'The question was whether you could differentiate between the eight kinds of chocolate,' she said. 'I became convinced that the power of microtargeting was enhanced by segregating a generally homogenous universe.'"
...
"Gage is ... humble about his role, calling himself a 'planner.' He said, 'I have always believed in Eisenhower's observation: "In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."'"
Romney's Data Cruncher
Fwd: Obama asks question, gets answer on Yahoo Answers (Yahoo is right!)
Governor Romney Would Veto Legislation Reviving The Fairness Doctrine:
Governor Romney Welcomes Supreme Court Ruling On McCain-Feingold:
Read The Full Statement Here.
Governor Romney's Global Initiative For Values And Freedom:
Last Week, Governor Romney Outlined His Global Initiative For Values And Freedom. To defeat the global Jihadist threat, Governor Romney believes we must have a truly global strategy that combines our efforts with others, brings more tools of our national power to bear and implements specific, tailored strategies for every nation at risk. The Global Initiative for Values and Freedom is a comprehensive strategy to defeat radical Jihad, ensure American security and advance freedom and human rights across the globe.
Governor Romney Will Create The Special Partnership Force (SPF) To Mobilize All Elements Of Our National Power To Defeat Jihadists. To meet today's challenges, we must mobilize and integrate all elements of our national power in unstable areas where traditional civilian agencies cannot operate effectively and traditional military power alone cannot succeed. The Special Partnership Force will integrate all elements of national power under a new force with leadership drawn from a core group of our Army Special Forces trained to work with civilian governments and intelligence personnel.
The SPF Will Build On A Long History Of Successful Efforts Against Terrorists And Insurgent Groups. Although a new capability, this force draws on the lessons learned from a long history of successful efforts against terrorist and insurgent groups, including U.S. efforts under the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II, post-9/11 efforts in Afghanistan, and recent Special Forces efforts in the Philippines.
Seeking sanity on Planet Massachusetts
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | There was a time not so long ago when a sane person could say, "Children need a mom and a dad," and the townspeople would yawn, roll their eyes and wonder why some folks insist on sharing such prosaic insights.
This might still be true in some parts of the world, but not in Massachusetts, where the water apparently is tainted with more than old tea, and where stating the obvious — as Gov. Mitt Romney recently did — will get you labeled a hate-mongering radical wing nut.
Actually, it's worse than that. For his support of the traditional, two-parent, heterosexual family, Romney has been accused of being like President George W. Bush. Now them's fightin' words, for sure.
In a damning editorial, the Boston Globe criticized Romney for taking "a page from President Bush's illogic by insisting that every child 'has a right to a mother and a father,' implying that two women or two men could not possibly do the job."
Actually, Romney's statement implies nothing of the sort. Two men and two women can raise children, just as one woman or one man can raise children. But neither case provides an ideal environment, which is Romney's point as well as the opinion of a majority of Americans.
Romney, who made his remarks during visits to Utah and South Carolina, doesn't get a free pass. Some of his remarks were, shall we say, not well considered. In one instance, the governor said that same-sex marriage is "a blow to the family." In another, he noted that some same-sex couples are "actually having children born to them."
As excerpted, that last statement sounds as though Romney were discussing some alien species that somehow managed to replicate human progeny. But within the larger context of the same-sex marriage debate, his meaning might be understood as something else. Not that gays have no right to families of their own, but that in principle, children's interests are best served by having both a mother and a father.
Most Americans agree with that statement — which is imminently reasonable and which surely is just as true for gay children as for straights. How many gays or lesbians, after all, would prefer to have had no mother, or no father, as the case may be?
For purposes of discussion, no abused children are allowed to respond. Clearly, we're talking about ideals and principles, not worst-case scenarios, as The Globe editorial does in one of its most fallacious arguments, posed as questions:
"Would Romney support dissolving that child's family?" the editorial asks, referring to the child of a same-sex family. "Would he prevent gay couples from adopting needy children — products of often abusive homes or dissolved heterosexual unions?"
Again, nothing Romney said suggests either that he would break up gay couples or try to prevent abused children from finding a safe home, even with a same-sex couple. Believing that children are best off with a mother and a father is a principle, not a strategy for hurting people who happen to be homosexual.
The Globe editorial also relies on the testimony of children to make a case for same-sex marriage. Doubtless these are lovely children who love their parents, but they ARE children. One, an 11-year-old boy whose parents are lesbians, spoke at a recent demonstration outside the governor's office, saying:
"My family is just an ordinary family, and I don't know why we can't live together and be happy."
Again, no one has said this child can't live with his two mothers or that he can't be happy. What traditional-family advocates believe is that an 11-year-old boy also would benefit from having a dad. By endorsing same-sex marriage, society effectively declares otherwise.
Obviously, he's better off without a dad who is also an abusive, pill-popping, philandering drunk. But once again, the worst dad possible should not be our standard for defining family policy.
Ultimately, there may be no resolution to these differences in perspective. No one can fault gays and lesbians for wanting spouses and children of their own. We all — hetero and homo — seem to be equally deranged on that score. But the essential question is not what adults want, but what is best for children.
In principle if not always in practice. 
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
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