[LINK] Data-mining Romney campaign

[Jan Whitaker]

[another "use" for all that tracking data -- the 
question is: how is it they get access to it?]

  Mitt Romney Uses Secretive Data Mining To Identify Wealthy Donors

By JACK GILLUM 08/24/12

WASHINGTON ­ Mitt Romney's success in raising 
hundreds of millions of dollars in the costliest 
presidential race ever can be traced in part to a 
secretive data-mining project that sifts through 
Americans' personal information – including their 
purchasing history and church attendance – to 
identify new and likely, wealthy donors, The Associated Press has learned.

For the data-mining project, the Republican 
candidate has quietly employed since at least 
June a little-known but successful analytics firm 
that previously performed marketing work for a 
colleague tied to Bain & Co., the 
management-consulting firm that Romney once led.

The head of Buxton Co. of Fort Worth, Texas, 
chief executive Tom Buxton, confirmed to the AP 
his company's efforts to help Romney identify 
rich and previously untapped Republican donors 
across the country. The Romney campaign declined 
to discuss on the record its work with Buxton or the project's overall success.

The project shows that the same strategies 
corporations use to influence the way we shop and 
think are now being used to influence 
presidential elections. The same personal 
information that we give away, often unwittingly 
when we swipe our credit cards or log into 
Facebook, is now being collected by the people 
who might one day occupy the White House.

There are no records of payments to Buxton from 
Romney's campaign, the Republican National 
Committee or a joint fundraising committee. Under 
federal law, companies cannot use corporate money 
or resources, such as proprietary data analysis, 
for in-kind contributions to campaigns.

The effort by Romney appears to be the first 
example of a political campaign using such 
extensive data analysis. President Barack Obama's 
re-election campaign has long been known as 
data-savvy, but Romney's project appears to take 
a page from the Fortune 500 business world and 
dig deeper into available consumer data.

Buxton said he's working for the Romney campaign 
because he wants "to be on the winning team."

[more at the link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/24/mitt-romney-data-mining_n_1827318.html


Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the 
world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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