Can Obama's tech guru and his microtargeting whiz kids help the president hold on to the Oval Office

[Laura PourMeADrink]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/harper-reed-obama-campaign-microtargeting?page=1


[font size=3.5]Obama's Chief Technology Officer, Harper Reed.

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On his site, where he describes himself as "pretty awesome," Reed painstakingly tabulates everything from his weight to his exact location. A certifiable hipster with gauged earlobes and an occasionally waxed handlebar mustache that complements his roosterlike crest of red hair, Reed is a veteran of the professional yo-yo circuit, a devotee of death metal, and a cofounder of Jugglers Against Homophobia. As chief technology officer for President Obama's reelection effort—responsible for building the apps and databases that will power the campaign's outreach—he and his team of geeks could provide the edge in a race that's expected to be decided by the narrowest of margins.

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Over the last year and a half at the campaign's Chicago headquarters, a team of almost 100 data scientists, developers, engineers, analysts, and old-school hackers have been transforming the way politicians acquire data—and what they do with it. They're building a new kind of Chicago machine, one aimed at processing unprecedented amounts of information and leveraging it to generate money, volunteers, and, ultimately, votes.

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It's ironic that Romney's 2012 campaign is reduced to such a reactive mode since the former consultant was himself an early convert to the data-centric campaign. When Alex Lundry's conservative analytics shop, TargetPoint, approached the Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate in 2002 with the idea of using analytics to identify voters, Romney's Bain confidants were stunned: "You mean they don't do this in politics?"