
Meet the Campaign Connecting Affluent Techies with Progressive Candidates - idlewords
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/8/17092684/great-slate-fundraising-congressional-campaign
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durkie
Thanks for your great work Maciej! I'm impressed with how well you're able to
mobilize people and dollars.

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idlewords
Thank you! The people and dollars have been self-mobilizing; I think all
people needed was a specific list of candidates to rally around. Working with
these campaigns has been a real privilege and a strong antidote to feelings of
political despair.

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baldeagle
I know some people running for public office. Can't even get them to use
Signal, much less a dongle. I would welcome an Intro to Privacy for Campaigns
MOOC though; maybe that would teach them? Are there any concise refernces for
how to securely communicate yet remain flexible and welcoming?

~~~
idlewords
This is the training outline we use:
[https://techsolidarity.org/resources/congressional_howto.htm...](https://techsolidarity.org/resources/congressional_howto.html)

~~~
lzy
> Use Google Chrome as your default browser on your laptop. We should have
> installed this and set it up during the training. Avoid Safari and Firefox.

Why the advice to avoid Firefox for non-techies?

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fapi1974
Every election I get that California "my vote doesn't count" feeling. Glad
this is out there as an alternative.

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nonintuitive
love it, thanks for all your hard work, and I will continue to donate!

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RickJWagner
From recent headlines, I'd think California could put that money to better
use.

Homelessness, water problems, filthy sidewalks, no housing, etc.

Why export the money?

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lgleason
This is everyting that is wrong with the electoral system in the US and the
attempt (often successful) of many people to buy elections. It's one thing
when you live in an area, vote in it, and work at that level. It is another
when you have no real connection to an area, have no real idea about what the
struggles of the peole in that area face, or their local issues, but are
willing to do anything you can do influence who they vote for because of your
desire to change things nationally for your own interests.

~~~
idlewords
Congress makes laws that affect everyone in the United States.

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masonic

      He doesn’t even own a laptop or smartphone.
    

This is a definition of "progressive" with which I was previously unfamiliar.

    
    
      Spencer doesn’t take PAC money.
    

How is Great Slate itself not a PAC, in the general sense?

~~~
idlewords
Because the Great Slate is an effort to persuade people to make individual
contributions to political campaigns. That is a different animal than a
political action committee.

You should look up the history of "progressive" in the political context. It
has nothing to do with keeping up to date with technology.

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ZeroGravitas
Interesting article, shame to see the continuing pattern of demonising the
DCCC for being pragmatic.

If someone could unlock a way for idealists and pragmatists anywhere to the
left of fascism to work together better then the government would far better
reflect the views of the population (which, polling tells us, are all in line
with the Democrat platform). It's only gamesmanship from the Republicans, and
apathy from everyone else that keeps them and their unpopular ideas in power.

~~~
LyndsySimon
> the population (which, polling tells us, are all in line with the Democrat
> platform)

In Arkansas? Citation, please.

Here, Democrats have to be very careful not to align themselves too closely
with the social platform of the DNC, while Republicans have to dance around
the issue of farm subsidies.

> their [Republicans] unpopular ideas

Yeah... about that. In Arkansas, our incumbent GOP governor has a single
primary challenger - Jan Morgan. Morgan is best known for running a shooting
range and vocally defending it as a "Muslim Free Zone". Here are her words:
[http://janmorganmedia.com/2014/09/business-muslim-free-
zone/](http://janmorganmedia.com/2014/09/business-muslim-free-zone/)

Arkansas is moving to the right, not to the left. I have no doubt that your
assessment accurately reflects the realities of the areas around most HN
readers, but it's dramatically incorrect when applied to this state.

For what it's worth, I've not seen any polling to know for sure how Morgan is
doing against Hutchinson, but the impression I have is that she will lose to
him but that his public stance will shift further to the right in response to
her primary challenge. Some fairly clear signs of that started to manifest
around the first of this year: [http://www.guns.com/2017/12/29/arkansas-
governor-weighs-in-o...](http://www.guns.com/2017/12/29/arkansas-governor-
weighs-in-on-open-carry-in-the-state/)

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I was talking about the nation as a whole. Arkansas accounts for about 1% of
that population but even there I think my point holds true.

There's measures and processes that can ensure politics better reflects the
will of the people. I would guess that in Arkansas, like many other places,
it's Republican's who are fighting against these things, and Democrats that
are fighting for them. Why? Because the Democrats know that in general, the
people support their policies, and the Republicans know in general, the people
don't support theirs.

I just googled "Arkansas Voter Suppression" and found this recent story:

[http://fortune.com/2017/03/25/arkansas-voter-id-
law/](http://fortune.com/2017/03/25/arkansas-voter-id-law/)

 _" Arkansas’ governor signed a measure Friday requiring voters to show photo
identification before casting a ballot, reinstating a voter ID law that was
struck down by the state’s highest court more than two years ago.

...

The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit that led to the
previous law being stricken, said the latest measure raises the same concerns
that voters will be disenfranchised. Holly Dickson, legal director for the
ACLU of Arkansas, said the sworn statement provision in the latest law is an
improvement but that the measure still will risk hurting voters.

“Of course we have concerns that voter ID is going to do harm because that’s
been Arkansas’ experience so far with voter ID,” Dickson said."_

Extreme primary challenges like you mention only really have an effect in
first-past-the-post systems, because the party thinks it can win with 30% of
the vote and has no need to reach across the aisle to work with the other 70%
if they can get a small group motivated enough to vote. Obviously targetted
voter suppression makes this even easier, while moves to require votes, or
just make it easier to vote complicate it.

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nl
If 2016 was the year 4chan won the US presidency maybe 2018 will be the year
HN wins an election? Almost everyone quoted in this story is a well known HN
account...

 _It doesn’t help that Ceglowski is insistent on giving the candidates
briefings on information security. He carries YubiKeys — hardware
authentication devices that are the gold standard of two-factor authentication
— with him to meetings with those running for office. Beefing up security
practices in political campaigns is important, especially given the email
hacking that dominated the 2016 cycle — but a strange man showing up to
explain two-factor authentication to you is probably a little off-putting
nonetheless. After raising nearly a million dollars combined last quarter,
“they’re being a lot friendlier to me,” says Ceglowski._

This ia great, but sad that it takes a million dollars to make people use two-
factor.

 _A good chunk of that was driven by security researcher Thomas Ptacek’s
promise to stop tweeting about Eric S. Raymond, a notorious figure in the
open-source community whose bizarre and abundant ramblings on everything
including race and sex could be considered early forerunners of current alt-
right strains in the tech community._

I don't really know what to say...

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LyndsySimon
> If 2016 was the year 4chan won the US presidency maybe 2018 will be the year
> HN wins an election?

I suppose it's possible, but I seriously doubt it.

I live in Arkansas. I was born here, grew up here, and recently bought a house
and moved back after living five years in Charlottesville, VA. While I'm not
in Spencer's district I know several people who are.

From my perspective, this article is going to be a millstone around Spencer's
candidacy. It will do substantially more damage to his campaign than the money
will bring him benefit. There is a strong GOP majority there, and being able
to point to this article and say "Look! My competitor's campaign is being
financed by California liberals!" will all but guarantee that incumbent French
Hill will be able to consolidate and energize his base.

The district flipped in 2010, after the retirement of seven-term incumbent
Democrat Vic Snyder. It was successfully handed off to another GOP candidate
in 2014 when the previous incumbent gave up his seat to run for governor.

Further, in light of Trump's recent rapidly changing stance on gun rights, I
anticipate that will be polarizing issue of the 2018 midterms. Of the 435
current members of the House, Hill received the most money from the NRA[1] -
just over $1m, split between ads supportive of Hill and opposing his opponent.
According the Great Slate website[2] they raised $938k in Q4 of last year,
which was divided amongst nine candidates. That's less than 10% of what the
NRA alone provided to Hill last election cycle, while it sounds like it
constitutes the majority of Spencer's war chest.

In short, while the approach taken by the Great Slate is valid and could have
had a significant impact, this article probably eliminated what little chance
Spencer had in this election.

1: [http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/lawmakers-nra-
money/story?id=...](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/lawmakers-nra-
money/story?id=53230001)

2:
[https://secure.actblue.com/donate/great_slate](https://secure.actblue.com/donate/great_slate)

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RickJWagner
I have no idea why people down-vote this post.

Yeesh. Some people.

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LyndsySimon
Now that this has fallen off the front page, I'll go ahead and mention - if
people have downvoted that comment, an equal number have upvoted it. Its score
is "1 point".

~~~
nl
And I'm at -2, but I'm pretty sure that's just the 4chan alt-right people who
get annoyed at being called out. _Shurg_

You must be getting downvotes too, because I upvoted you.

