The Little Brown Reader

I recently had the chance to listen in on a panel of the American Association of Political Consultants, where the people who design and sell the latest techniques for targeting voters gathered to sell their wares to hungry campaign managers. What I heard confirmed for me that politics has increasingly become a mathematical exercise, designed to reach just enough people to get a candidate elected and no more, at the least possible cost.

That's not necessarily bad. The idea is still to communicate with potential voters, if in an increasingly sophisticated and manipulative way. But something tells me that the new wave of demographic and cultural targeting is not healthy for our democracy. The point is no longer to debate the issues of the day and build a mandate for your cause. It is simply to identify and move, by whatever means possible, those voters the computer tells you are most likely to side with your candidate.

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