Is Your Neighbor a Democrat? Obama Has an App for That

Quote from gunnerusa : Why don't you "educate" me? Provide a link that sustains your assertion that the Obama campaign is engaging in an equivalent data-mining operation. Remember, Romney is going far beyond the typical "names and addresses" type of info. He's drawing from people's personal habits, including items such as the kind of coffee someone buys at the grocery store, when and where they go to church, or the programs they like to watch on TV. Or is your "knowledge" really just faith?

The depth and breadth of the Obama campaign’s 2012 digital operation — from data mining to online organizing — reaches so far beyond anything politics has ever seen, experts maintain, that it could impact the outcome of a close presidential election. It makes the president’s much-heralded 2008 social media juggernaut — which raised half billion dollars and revolutionized politics — look like cavemen with stone tablets.

Four years ago Barack Obama’s presidential campaign set an impressive new standard for using social media and technology to harness votes.

But this time round Obama’s campaign have raised the bar even higher and, according to experts, this advantage could make all the difference to securing a second term in office.

(CNN) -- In July, KDNuggets.com, an online newsite focused on data mining and analytics software, ran an unusual listing in its jobs section.

"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," read the ad. "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."