How Team Obama's Narwhal ate Mittens' Orca

Some interesting articles about how Team Obama managed had its technology act "well-together" (as they say...) for 2012. It boils down to: good people, a startup culture and having a clear but flexible plan.

Dr Dobbs article.
InformationWeek article (it repeats a lot of what the Dr Dobbs one says)

The now-famous* ArsTechnica article.
*It's now famous - because I mentioned it... (Hubris? Wozzat? :-D )

The biggest difference, I think, isn't that the Romney Campaign had to go through a primary - that  should have been exploited for "learning" opportunities on how to run the technical side of things - it was that Team Obama "thought forward". They were ruthless with the features and each feature had to fit two criteria: will it help get President Obama re-elected, and can it be delivered in time? If the answer was "yes and maybe", out it went. They looked at the problems, delegated them to the right people and they thought about the problems. They didn't try to solve all of them, but they did their best to uncover those inevitable unknown problems that exist in every technical solution, and only become apparent when the system is stressed. By adopting a strict "not invented here is wonderful" attitude, they were also able to hit the ground running; from what I've seen about Mittens' technical team, they weren't as clear-headed about the problems, and seemed to have a "not invented here" phobia. As a result, Mittens' Project Orca - a killer whale that feasts upon narwhal's - folded like a bad joke while the narwhal just kept delivering. (So much for Mitten's vaunted "management experience", right?)

Next time, the Republicans will up the ante; they won't be caught that flatfooted again. On the other hand, the Dems have a base, albeit one they plan on tossing out and redoing. (I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of it could be picked up by a Hillary 2016 campaign.) I do think the GOP won't be exactly ready for the house elections 2014; they have so much infighting going on, it'll be awhile before a "standard" GOP platform emerges. But Team Obama already has a usable platform; they're using it to further the President's national agenda, and are probably continually updating it. (I would be!) What might happen is that spinoffs will be started as techies from both parties start to develop their solutions, and then sell those and their services to campaigns, like political consultants do all the time.

This will spread internationally. Democracies have many similarities, the most striking one being the need for the candidate to be elected. So - look for your next local election(s) to suddenly become ultra-local, ultra-competitive and more American. Because the Narwhal-inspired and informed techies will be there. Team Obama can add one more accomplishment to their already considerable list of them: changing how elections are managed. Team Obama's Narwhal will, ultimately beat Mittens' Orca.

Carolyn Ann