Campaign Tech

Recount Day 8’s ballot-challenge gap on pace with Coleman lead over Franken

The main story so far in Minnesota’s statewide election recount — besides incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman’s continuing slim lead over Democratic challenger Al Franken and the role of wrongly rejected absentee ballots — has been how the unexpectedly large numbers of ballot challenges from both campaigns have affected the recount’s running vote tally. By questioning election officials on 27 of every 10,000 ballots cast for either man, the campaigns have temporarily removed nearly 6,000 votes from the official recount totals, leaving Coleman in command (for the moment) of a 344-vote advantage. But take one statistic from Monday’s recount action — Coleman challenged 35 more ballots than did Franken — and extrapolate it across eight days of a recount that’s now nine-tenths done, and you can show, on paper at least, how Coleman’s ballot-challenge lead could account for his lead in the running tally of overall votes.

Open-source Obama: Change.gov shines a light on Creative Commons

With all Barack Obama’s administration will have to focus on — economy, war, healthcare — it’s remarkable that it honed in on such a tiny detail: it switched the copyright notice on its website to the freest Creative Commons license. As a nod to government transparency, the move seems to be largely symbolic, as commenters [...]

Why is a plane pulling a ‘Ron Paul Revolution’ banner over Minneapolis?

In the last couple weeks, I’ve tried to extract extra political meaning out of all sorts of stuff — Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s growing back his mullet (for a presidential run in 2012?), Al Franken’s traveling to D.C. (to cast a provisional ballot against U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman’s committee chairmanship?), and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak’s playing with [...]

TPT makes public plea to Paulsen: Stop using ‘Almanac’ clips in ad

Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) is making rumblings about “taking appropriate legal action” after its frustrated attempts to have state Rep. Erik Paulsen stop using video from TPT’s “Almanac” program in an ad attacking his 3rd Congressional District Democratic rival, Ashwin Madia. Paulsen’s FEC filings list ad production by Upgrade Films, the same D.C. outfit whose use of Pawlenty campaign video in a state GOP TV ad cost the governor’s 2002 campaign a $100,000 fine.

McCain calls: Obama’s “coddling criminals”

A reader in Mankato sends a new voicemail left by John McCain’s campaign which shows a sharp departure from the last round: Stumbling over words, the caller claims Barack Obama’s weak on crime:

Hi, I’m calling for John McCain and the RNC because Democrats are dangerously weak on crime. Barack Obama voted against tougher penalties for street gangs, drug-related crimes and protecting children from danger. Barack Obama and his liberal allies have a disturbing history of coddling criminals and we can’t trust their judgment to keep our families safe. This call is paid for by the Republican National Committee and McCain/Palin 2008 at 866.558.5591. Thank you for listening. You have a wonderful day.

Thank you. You too, McCain caller man!

Listen:

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Anti-Madia push-polling reported

Two residents of Minnesota’s Third Congressional District have given the Minnesota Independent details about calls they got Tuesday evening that they say started as political surveys but ended as push polls against DFL congressional candidate Ashwin Madia.

Follow the money: Wall Street’s political giving

The Sunlight Foundation has put together a fascinating animated graph that tracks the political donations from the finance, insurance and real estate sectors and to which party the money has gone. Utilizing Google Motion Chart and 20 years worth of data gathered by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, the chart seeks to demonstrate how [...]

Campaign tech: Bailout edition

The Internet threw its collective weight around and led a public rejection of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s proposed $700 billion blank-check Wall Street bailout.  The online petitions, open sources and incendiary snark came fast and furious from all political corners.

Campaign Tech: Obama has your number, we’ve got Palin’s email

Voter databases have become nearly as essential to national politics as money itself, and for the better part of the last decade the advantage has gone to the Republican Party and its Voter Vault database. This year the playing field has been leveled.

Also inside: Sarah Palin’s purloined Yahoo emails; Google Labs’ new audio search engine.

Little known fact: Sarah Palin is Internet gold

Republican nominee John McCain took many people by surprise when he presented first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate on Aug. 29. Media organizations, political junkies and even the campaign of Democratic nominee Barack Obama were sent scrambling to find information on the 44-year-old governor. While reporters were booking flights for Anchorage and [...]