From a help wanted ad:
Company: Obama 2012 Presidential Campaign
Location: Chicago, IL
Web: www.barackobama.com
The Obama for America Analytics Department analyzes the campaign's data to guide election strategy and develop quantitative, actionable insights that drive our decision-making. Our team's products help direct work on the ground, online and on the air.
We are looking for Predictive Modeling/Data Mining Scientists and Analysts, at both the senior and junior level, to join our department through November 2012 at our Chicago Headquarters. We are a multi-disciplinary team of statisticians, predictive modelers, data mining experts, mathematicians, software developers, general analysts and organizers - all striving for a single goal: re-electing President Obama.
Using statistical predictive modeling, the Democratic Party's comprehensive political database, and publicly available data, modeling analysts are charged with predicting the behavior of the American electorate. These models will be instrumental in helping the campaign determine which voters to target for turnout and persuasion efforts, where to buy advertising and how to best approach digital media.
Our Modeling Analysts will dive head-first into our massive data to solve some of our most critical online and offline challenges. We will analyze millions of interactions a day, learning from terabytes of historical data, running thousands of experiments, to inform campaign strategy and critical decisions.
If the Obama for America Analytics Department doesn't hire at least four-fifths as many Hispanic females as Asian males, then Eric Holder is going to want to know why!
The buzzwords lost me. This isn't real quant stuff, is it? I thought those guys were, you know, not retarded b-school losers.
ReplyDeleteCan't super brain Obama figure it out himself by means of some massive cogitation?
ReplyDeleteAre you thinking of applying for a job on the President's team Mr Sailer? Let me see - you have previous political campaign experience and marketing data analysis skills. And you understand quite a bit about the contemporary political scene and the President himself. An excellent prospect beckons forth.
ReplyDeleteI hope that someone manages to photograph or video the workers at this "company" so we can see how diverse they are. After all, we would not want to see any young black males discriminated against just because they served time in prison.
ReplyDelete"This isn't real quant stuff, is it? "
ReplyDeleteIt is. You'd have to study, at the very least, something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Recognition-Learning-Information-Statistics/dp/0387310738
Oh... was that Twitter thing a bust, then? Analytics--that's the ticket!
ReplyDeleteThe faces pictured in his 2012 web ads lately have seemed mighty monochromatic but that may just be because I'm on TNR.com, MotherJones Wire, etc
It sounds like Hari Seldon & his discipline of psycho-history as presented in the Foundation novels by Isaac Asimov: have super-genii crunch huge amounts of data through a complex model & predict the behaviour of humanity for the next thousand years.
ReplyDeleteObama needs to ensure he has a B team of psychics whom he can order to mentally control people in case the A team screw up.
They can probably pay for this with all the money they save not having to run political ads on MSNBC.
ReplyDelete"If the Obama for America Analytics Department doesn't hire at least four-fifths as many Hispanic females as Asian males, then Eric Holder is going to want to know why!"
ReplyDeleteMaybe. But he won't be overly concerned. Hispanics not his people.
Suppose in the future, everyone is of mixed blood. But let's say light skinned mestizos/mulattos are better represented than darker mulattos/mestizos. Will this problem go away? Maybe it will be reduced.
ReplyDeleteIn Mexico, most people are said to be mixed. Even white elites are said to have some bit of indigenous blood. This could be why masses of mestizos are okay with white elites since white elites too are seen as having at least a drop of native blood. And since mestizos have some white blood, they feel something in common with elites too.
Maybe all whites should get tanned, change their last name to Jackson, and claim to be at least 1% black.
Politicians employ data miners to sort through data; it can't be that different from market research. Seems likely to be at least reasonably rigorous; after all, politicians want to win.
ReplyDeleteAnd given that jocks tend to be conservative and geeks liberal, Obama might have the edge here.
"In Mexico, most people are said to be mixed. Even white elites are said to have some bit of indigenous blood. This could be why masses of mestizos are okay with white elites since white elites too are seen as having at least a drop of native blood."
ReplyDeleteThis is a tangent, but an interesting one. Back in the day of southern slavery, white owners were known to father children with slaves. The daughters of course grew up and were likely involved with the owner, a new owner or his son, neighbor's son etc. Soon there were an ample number of folks that were fairly light and could run away because they could get some decent looking clothes and pass themselves off as white. Also visitors to the south could see these white slaves, especially the children and well, it is obvious that sentiments could favor these folks who were more white than black. Some contend that this drove abolitionist zeal.
"And given that jocks tend to be conservative and geeks liberal, Obama might have the edge here."
ReplyDeleteLook at GSS. Math majors are actually the most conservative.
"If the Obama for America Analytics Department doesn't hire at least four-fifths as many Hispanic females as Asian males, then Eric Holder is going to want to know why!"
ReplyDeleteNot really. If there's one central thing to learn about leftists, its that the rules they demand everyone else use don't apply to them. They'll come up with every excuse in the book if needed ("it was for the greatest good!"), omit and ignore facts, laws, rules, and blatant hypocrisy. So even if every one working there was a white male from a wealthy family, they wouldn't be bothered in the slightest, nor would you hear about it from the media, nor would any of the usual "victims" groups/race hucksters/lawyers come-a-whining.
Well that brings us back to this pic: how many minorities do you see in this room. I count 13 faces, and only one who is (half) black. In addition, the hair of head at the bottom left is most definitely a white guy. 13.5 out of 14 are white in one of the most important rooms in America on on of its most important days. Most of them handpicked by Obama himself.
ReplyDeleteAnd let's not get into the demograohics of SEAL Team Six, or the CIA agents who hunted Bin Laden down.
When it matters to Obama, and to HIS future, AA and set-asides go out the window. But every business regulated by the government, and the economy they sustain, can rot, for all he cares.
As I understand it, it's only the total number of people hired. They will hire nerdy Asian and white guys to do the math, and hire blacks and Hispanics to do "community outreach" and "media liason". Isn't that how the Fortune 500 does it? And the blacks and Hispanics won't care they aren't doing the nerdy math stuff, that's for losers anyway. They will be working less and getting paid more. Diversity is great!
ReplyDeleteThey really should have hired a copy editor first.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDelete"The buzzwords lost me. This isn't real quant stuff, is it? I thought those guys were, you know, not retarded b-school losers."
So are you saying that you are not a "retarded b-school loser"? Your writing ability is, you know, a little difficult for us non-"retarded b-school losers" to understand, lol.
Somehow I do not think Eric "My People" Holder would be thta concerned about Asians "being underrepresented".
ReplyDelete