Why technology loves Obama

[DonViejo]

The GOP blames its own digital incompetence on a failure to follow free market principles. They still don't get it

BY ANDREW LEONARD

The postmortems blaming Mitt Romney’s election loss, at least in part, on his campaign’s digital incompetence began before the candidate had even made his concession speech. In that respect, Robert Draper’s loooooooooong read in the New York Times Magazine, “Can the Republicans Be Saved From Obsolescence?” doesn’t tell us much that is particularly new on the how-Obama-did-it technology front. Alexis Madrigal had this story first, and best.

But there are some interesting quotes from conservatives in the piece framing GOP woes as a case in which Democrats are behaving more in accord with the principles of the “free market” than Republicans that deserve closer examination. They offer some illumination, but don’t quite capture the whole picture of what’s going on.

Patrick Ruffini, up-and-coming GOP strategist, attends RootsCamp, watches Democratic organizers share tactics and lessons learned from the 2012 campaign, and tells Draper that “the thing I was struck by at RootsCamp was that in many ways, the Democratic technology ecosystem has embraced the free market — whereas the Republican one sort of runs on socialism, with the R.N.C. being the overlord.”

Ben Domenech, a founder of the RedState blog, explaining why there’s a perception that, as Draper puts it, “technological innovation runs at cross-purposes with the [GOP's] corporate rigidity,” says that “there are always elders at the top who say, ‘That’s not important.’ And that’s where the left has beaten us, by giving smart people the space and trusting them to have success. It’s a fundamentally anti-entrepreneurial model we’ve embraced.”

When Republicans start categorizing their own operating system as “socialist” and “anti-entrepreneurial” you know that the Grand Old Party is in serious disarray. But the interesting thing here is how Ruffini and Domenech are using “free market” rhetoric to frame the problem. That’s not quite right. What’s really happening is that Democrats have grasped a fundamental attribute of the digital age — information is easy to share — and have understood that the best way to take advantage of this special quality is set up a structure in which “smart people” are allowed to operate freely in an environment where information flows fluidly.

more:
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/15/why_technology_loves_obama/

[onehandle]

1. His Twitter feed was nothing but humblebragging about his car elevator...

...and how much he hated people who drink beer.

No wonder he lost.

[Cha]

2. Yeah, the President loves Technology, Science, Reality,

etc.. he's that kind of person. For one very important reason among others.. He knows all this new tech will pass reality around since the dinosaurs at US MediaWhore Propaganda Central Won't.