Obama has your number -- and apparently lots more
Salon reports: About every week or so, you get an e-mail from Barack Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, or top deputy Steve Hildebrand, or maybe Obama himself. They re breezy and informal, addressing you by first NAME at the outset before they ask you to donate money at the end . But that s just the beginning.
You know, of course, that Obama has your e-mail address. You may not have realized that he probably also has your phone number and knows where you re registered to vote -- including whether that s a house or an apartment building, and whether you rent or own. He s got a decent estimate of your household income and whether you OPENed a credit card recently. He knows how many kids you re likely to have and what you do for a living. He knows what magazines and catalogs you get and whether you re more apt to get your news from cable TV, the local newspaper or online. And he knows what time of day you tend to get around to plowing through your in box and responding to messages.
The 5 million people on Obama s e-mail list are just the start of what political strategists say is one of the most sophisticated voter databases ever built. Using a combination of the information that supporters are volunteering, data the campaign is digging up on its own and powerful market research tools first developed for corporations, Obama s staff has combined new online organizing with old-school methods of voter outreach to assemble a central database for hitting people with messages tailored as closely as possible to what they re likely to want to hear. It s an ambitious melding of corporate marketing and grassroots organizing that the Obama campaign sees as a key to winning this fall. -- Barack Obama s super marketing machine | Salon News