[chernevik]

It seems more likely that this was an Obama campaign advantage, rather than a Democratic party advantage.

The translation over isn't obvious. From what I've heard their internal organization was pretty fluid. That kind of thing depends on the quality of people involved, their commonality of purpose, and the organizational culture. You can't box that and roll it over to party HQ.

That said, Democrats do seem more likely to attract and motivate the kind of people you'd need for this. That's a pretty important head start.

[btilly]

It seems more likely that this was an Obama campaign advantage, rather than a Democratic party advantage.

Judging from the emails I'm getting, Obama would like to turn it from a campaign advantage to a governing advantage (here are all of my current policy issues, please put pressure on Congress to do X, Y and Z), and if he succeeds in that he will undoubtably try to turn it into a party advantage in the future.

So yes, the organization is fluid and can evaporate. The database of possibly politically active people is much less fluid, and may prove to be a more durable advantage.

[malachismith]

If you are resistent to change, it's hard to attract people who want to create change....

[tptacek]

This sounds insightful but really isn't. It's the Republicans who want the most change right now. It's change in a direction most of us disagree with, but it's far more radical than the Democratic agenda.

The reality is that if there's a tech advantage held by the Dems, it's the product of much simpler demographics; youth, urban, educated.

[tomjen3]

I do think the democrats have a technological advantage in this case, but it is far less solid than it may appear at first.

For simple demographic reasons the republicans cannot continue to focus on the old white anti homosexual segment of the population, since there aren't enough of them left to form a majority (projections suggest that Texas may turn blue by 2020, perhaps even 2016, if Texas turns blue then the Republicans will never again win the White House) and the other obvious alternative for the republicans is the young, well educated people who want and end to marihuana prohibition and less government interference in the lives in general.

Should the republican pivot to take these voters in, then they may very well attract a much larger share of tech people.

[btilly]

The Republicans are caught in their own gerrymander here.

As a party they absolutely need to find new issues, stop alienating Latinos, etc. However the national political lights in the party are mostly in Congress, and the vast majority of them are only going to face political challenges from their own right wing, and so have every reason to double down on current Republican policies even though it is not where the party as a whole needs to go.

I don't expect this dynamic to shift until after the Republican brand has so damaged itself that it stops being nationally viable. This will create soul searching, and cause them to pivot. What happens next will depend on how they pivot.

However I do not expect to see a serious discussion within the Republican party about their dilemma until they have pushed themselves to crisis. Which they have not done yet.

[rmc]

It's funny because the UK Labour party had a similar change/pivot in the early 1990s to become what is nicknamed "New Labour". They got rid of their previous party consitution which was quite socialist and replaced it with a watered down version. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clause_IV

The US Republicans need a Clause IV moment.

[yk]

The interesting problem of the republicans is, that they have to focus on the far right. If they focus on anyone else, then they will loose the current core voters and will loose more votes than they actually can get from anywhere else in the short term.

[malachismith]

You're talking retrograde change (a change back to a prior state). But yes... the demographics obviously favor the Dems when it comes to Tech.

[Florin_Andrei]

It's not called "change" when it goes backwards in time.

[luc_perkins]

I agree pretty strongly. I read, for example, that the Obama campaign expanded the Democratic Party's voter database by something like a factor of 10.

[eli]

But the database (and accompanying tech platform) then gets cycled back into the hands of state and local parties, where it can be incredibly useful.

[oasisbob]

I'm not entirely sure that's the case. The DNC voterfile is compiled primarily from public record requests, and is as complete this cycle as it was in any other.

Narwhal and other OFA DBs may have supplemental information -- as do the "blue" vendors -- but that's separate from the voterfile, and I'm not sure its life-cycle is certain at this point.