The good news? The Republican party committees — the RNC, the NRSC, and NRCC — actually seem to understand this challenge, making serious hires with actual technology backgrounds to tackle this problem. Underappreciated in this process is the RNC’s investment in a permanent field infrastructure, something lacking in the past. Professional operatives are also demonstrating more interest and curiosity in the ability of technology and analytics to help their campaigns run more efficiently. The bad news? The campaigns (whose performance actually determines who gets elected) still haven’t adjusted. They are still hiring the same people with the same cultural baggage, and making many of the same bad decisions. Either they believe the Obama field and digital example doesn’t apply to them, or they claim to be addressing the challenge with one-dimensional solutions that address a small part of the problem, or knockoffs that don’t are no match for the vastness and sophistication of the Democrats’ tech operation.
After the Cave: What Have Republicans Learned About Digital Since 2012?
