While I normally leave the politics writing to others, this Wall Street Journal story caught my eye.
Sure, I was sucked in by the main story about how some polls show the presidential race as much closer than others. But what really captured my attention was the technology issue that was behind some of that variance.
Historically, pollsters have dialed random house phones to get their selection of voters. The problem is that more and more people, particularly young adults, don't have a landline.
The difference can be significant, as pointed out by a Pew research study last month. The organization conducted three separate polls--in June, August, and September. Each time, the difference between cell phone users and landline voters represented at least a 10-point swing (in Barack Obama's favor among cell phone respondents). The blended result was obviously more muted, but still showed a meaningful bump for Obama as compared with landline-only polling.
To be sure, the cell phone issue is just one of many complicating factors for pollsters this year, including how to weight party affiliation and other decidedly non-tech issues. Anyway, I thought the cell phone issue was one worth some attention.
(Credit:
Walter Reed Middle School)
I was happy to refrain from commenting about John McCain's acceptance speech last night. There are enough political spin doctors out there already and Microsoft is keeping me plenty busy.
But now that my junior high school has taken on the starring role, I can't leave it alone.
It turns out a photo displayed on a screen during the first part of McCain's speech, which some thought was one of McCain's many mansions, was in fact the front of Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, Calif., where yours truly spent three awkward, hormone-filled years. (TV viewers may not have noticed, because the close-ups only showed McCain's head against the green grass in the picture.)
The predominant assumption in the blogosphere is that one of the AV geeks tasked with backdrops for the evening's speech was told to get a photo of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, but got my middle school instead. Weird thing is, as pointed out by Talking Points Memo, the lead blog on the still-developing story, Walter Reed Middle School was also the backdrop for Matt Santos' announcement of his presidential candidacy on The West Wing. (Another Hollywood factoid: the show Head of the Class was also loosely based on Walter Reed Middle School's Individualized Honors Program.)
In the latest wrinkle, Walter Reed's principal has now put out a statement saying the school did not approve McCain's use of the school.
"It has been brought to the school's attention that a picture of the front of our school, Walter Reed Middle School, was used as a backdrop at the Republican National Convention," Principal Donna Tobin said in a statement. "Permission to use the front of our school for the Republican National Convention was not given by our school nor is the use of our school's picture an endorsement of any political party or view."
And, just a memo to the McCain campaign, forcing me to relive my junior high years is not generally a good way to get my vote.
CNET News' Michelle Meyers contributed to this report.
RNC eCampaign director Cyrus Krohn, Huffington Post Editor in Chief Arianna Huffington, and Democratic strategist Mark Penn onstage Tuesday at Microsoft's advertising conference.
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET News.com)REDMOND, Wash.--Before starting in on her politics, Arianna Huffington wanted to make sure she was in a friendly crowd.
"Are there any Hungarians in the audience? Are there any eggs in the audience?" asked Huffington, editor in chief of the Huffington Post. It was a reference to an incident earlier this week in which Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer found himself ducking as a protester in Hungary tossed three eggs at him.
From that point, on, though, the barbs flew between the other two panelists--Hillary Clinton strategist Mark Penn and Republican National Committee eCampaign director Cyrus Krohn.
But what was most striking was their shared experience in discovering the power of the Internet. Penn talked about the "3 a.m. ad" in which Hillary Clinton sparked a huge conversation through an ad asking which candidate voters would rather have getting a late-night phone call about a crisis.
The ad, which was based solely on stock images, was cheap to produce but viewed millions of times, mostly online and at no cost to the campaign.
"You can really generate $50 million, a hundred million (dollars) worth of footage," he said.
Krohn, meanwhile, pointed to the power of the Net in organizing voters. He said that their Internet effort to register voters online has cut the cost of boosting the rolls from $23 per voter to less than $10 per voter. He also pointed to a governor's race in which the RNC was able to get 75 percent turnout from those it was communicating with electronically, compared with 48 percent overall turnout.
The committee also got more than 700,000 people in a 72-hour-period to visit a Valentine's Day e-card site in which visitors could send e-cards with Clinton or Barack Obama's picture and such phrases as "my liberal heart bleeds for you." The RNC also got something in return--e-mail addresses that it could then use as a base for soliciting funds or other marketing.
Next up, Krohn said, a cell phone text-message campaign.
If this year's Democratic convention does come down to a floor battle, Microsoft could end up being the real winner.
The Democratic National Convention Committee announced Monday that Microsoft will be the "official software and HD Web content provider" for the convention, which runs August 25-28 in Denver. The move is a vote of confidence for Silverlight, which is in a battle against incumbent Adobe Flash.
The software maker will power real-time online voting systems for delegates as well as live, gavel-to-gavel streaming coverage of the event at DemConvention.com.
"Silverlight multimedia applications will provide an all-access pass for the Convention's online audience, offering an unprecedented opportunity for viewers to individually tailor their Convention experiences," the party and Microsoft said in a statement.
The Democratic convention is just one of the events that Microsoft is banking on to help drive adoption of Silverlight. The company also has an exclusive deal to power NBC's Olympics site.
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