Tom DeLay and the Internet Machine
Tom DeLay is convinced that Texas will turn blue but not because of changing demographics or that the population is getting younger in Texas.
Nope.
Texas will turn blue because of data. Yep, technology. That’s the ticket! DeLay says that the Democrats have powerful coalition.
That coalition coupled with President Obama’s campaign machine and its digital approach to voters could damage Texas Republicans, he said.
“And we have nothing to counter it,” Delay said.
Obama didn’t beat former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in last year’s presidential race on policy, image or anything else, Delay said.
It was the president’s 2012 digital strategy.
Obama’s campaign had dozens of computer engineers writing software and gathering data around the clock to find out what voters believe in, keep them motivated, organize them and turn them out at the polls, Delay said.
“It was incredibly impressive, and they did it all through technology,” he said. “That technology’s now in Texas.”
Democrats could turn Texas purple or blue “only because we allow it to happen,” Delay said.
Okay, so let me tell you what is going to happen next. Tom DeLay will be forming a “technology” company. He will round up a few software engineers and call it The True American Digital Free Enterprise Freedom Liberty and More Freedom Boutique. He will go to GOP donors with a plan to save the GOP.
And like every other scam operation at www.TomDeLay.com, it will fail. Since he was indicted there have been at least five money-making failures, including the one where you paid money to read his blog, at his website.
I can promise you that another one is coming. Republicans don’t lose on bad ideas or the fact that they’re just a bunch of old white men with hateful plans. They lose because they have don’t have computers! Tom DeLay, the last relic of a dying political party will save them all by having hate in zeros and ones instead of words.
The man will do anything for a buck. Mark my word. That will be his newest scam.
Forgiveness is nice, but Holy Gohmertz, the quitters, criminals and failures should be regarded with a serious degree of skepticism. The gohmerts who qualify as having all 3 characteristics repeatedly being quitters, criminals and failures need not run for public office or be given media time.
Enough is enough with the irony of an Ollie North on the History Channel or a Palin as pundit. We’re exercising our right to change the channel and turn off the TV, if that is all that is offered.
1Back in my salad days, when I was young and hungry and living in a very red county (Henry Hyde, writer of the Hyde Amendment and floor manager of the Clinton impeachment proceedings was my Congressman) I joined the only game in town. I’m not proud of it, now, but I learned a lot from them that made me very effective once I switched back to the light side.
Anyway, they had this MARVELOUS database of voters, including if they were a gun enthusiast, or had donated money to certain churches, or who subscribed to the Trib or the Sun-Times, etc etc. They had datamined tons of relevant information, and mailings and phone calls were tailored to different populations.
Fast forward to 2008, and the Obama team had that same type of system, only the the Nth degree! But it really wasn’t until then that they had caught up to what the GOP used to have.
The problem for the dark side is that the Republican Party is disintegrating, as money is bypassing the party and going directly to candidates. The Obama system belonged to OFA, not the Dems, and is spreading out from there. The GOP system did not, and neither McCain nor Romney, it appears, made use of it.
A big component of the success of these systems is feedback FROM THE FIELD of people in actual touch with the voters on the phones or on the doorsteps, that is then available to future candidates.
What Tom “I should be Dancing with the Convicts” Delay is whining about already exists, but the darkside money and the Tea Party revolt have weakened it.
As in everything else, we just do it better.
2Would you buy a used car from this guy?
3Hell no! Keep your purses and wallets under lock and key. Delay rides again.
daChipster,
How do they obtain donation records of people to churches? Do these certain churches willingly give up that information or do they sell it to the highest bidder?
4Mark – they willingly gave it up. I suspect donations in return were involved.
5Also we used to key in church directoties.
6Of course the Repubs have something to counter it: lies, voter suppression, and cheating in general.
7Tom should be Prancing With The Prisoners, not Scamming The Suckers. How’s his foster care community doing these days?
I will go to my grave despising that man.
8Like usual Delay is lying through his teeth. Obama won because of Willard’s digital strategy. Remember it was Willard that gave the 47% the finger. And women,and the poor,and the elderly and so on-all got Willard’s middle digit.
9Here’s what Garrison Keillor had to say about Republicans just like Tom “The Dancing Bug” Delay!
“The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills,faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance
10racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks,Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk.”
So what happened to those high tech companies (or was it committees) that Perry doled out taxpayer money to so they can pretend to create a Texas version of Silicon valley?
11As for me, I’m happy to see Tom Delay help level the playing field by scamming the big Republican donors. The more Republican money goes to Tom, the less gets spent effectively.
12As an interview goes, this “exclusive” to the Corpus Christi Caller is manufactured attention for a has-been who is no more than a legend in his own mind. Wise political prognostications at CPAC while he’s standing by an escalator at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center. Seriously?
It’s a comical sight to see the Palins and DeLays of the conservative world slide slowly into the dustbin of political irrelevance.
13So, it was all “digital” and had nothing to do with people like me who went out 15 or more times knocking at least 50 doors a time? Delay is delusional, and DUMB!
14Wow! The magic he imbues in technology! Ten to one he really doesn’t know bum-diddly about it. He reminds me of the late Alaska Senator Ted Stevens who once described the internet as running on tubes!
15Slightly off topic, but … Your Governor is not saying whether or not he will run for President again. Let’s see what happens. Was it Democratic technology that killed Rick Perry’s campaign? No, he shot hisownself in the foot (jogging with that gun again!).
Just for fun, there’s a light-hearted interview up with Rick Perry and Jimmy Kimmel live in Austin at SXSW. It’s worth watching, even if only for the boos that the Austin audience shower on Perry when he’s introduced! He’s a good sport, though — credit where it’s due.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/03/12/rick-perry-you-dont-want-to-ruin-a-kids-life-for-having-a-joint-video/
16I think it would be a great idea for DeLay to get Repugs to invest in his company and spend lots of money on another of his ideas. Every dollar wasted with him is one less we have to worry about. They all deserve each other.
17@Fred F: Are you a Ruben Bolling fan? His comic, Tom the Dancing Bug, is my personal favorite.
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