
Zuckerberg hires former Clinton pollster - elsewhen
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/02/zuckerberg-hires-former-clinton-pollster-joel-benenson-241265
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nether
Am I the only one who thinks this speculation on Zuck running for pres is all
nonsense? There's been a revolving door between Dem staff and elite tech
industry positions since Obama. No one thought Larry Page or Sergey Brin was
going into politics then. He's a young person very interested in politics, and
has the wherewithal to explore the arena in some unique ways (visiting random
blue collar Americans), but there's no indication he's ready to abandon his
duties at FB. Or is there?

~~~
goatsi
People who are merely exploring the country to learn more about it rarely feel
the need to intensively document it using a professional media team.

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RickJWag
Should've hired from Bernie's team. He was outspent, fighting against the DNC
(and the media), operating on grass roots rather than machine politics. He
almost won. In fairness, much of the same could be said of Trump. Hillary's
team lost in spite of massive inorganic advantages.

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jrs95
Seems like he might really be going for 2020. This might be even more
interesting than 2016 was.

~~~
itg
If he does run, I can't even imagine the type of data he has access to. What a
massive advantage.

~~~
maxxxxx
I don't think he can just use Facebook's data. That would be insane.

~~~
sergiotapia
"I promise I won't use it. Pinky promise."

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CurryMath
I know this is completely off-topic, but what's up with the comments?

To me they seem as kinda unusual for HN, more reddit-like. Among all the
threads I have looked at in the last few hours, this is the only one where it
is so extreme.

~~~
weirdstuff
In all fairness the idea of Zuckerberg running for president is a little
extreme (even if true) and is likely to be the subject of ridicule and
criticism.

~~~
CurryMath
I understand that, bu usually HN refrains from commenting repetitive one-
liners.

The main reason I come to HN instead of just living on reddit is that the
chance that the comments refer to content in the article and not just the
sentiment of the headline is much greater.

Also, comments are somewhat unique. The trouble with reddit comments is that
they are completely overrun with extremely predictable memes or express some
sort of emotion (usually outrage or hype) without adding _anything_.

I really fear that HN turns into a subreddit, because I have no idea what site
I would go to next.

~~~
_delirium
"HN is turning into reddit now, it used to be different" is perhaps the most
repetitive comment on all of HN, though. People have been making this
complaint for years and years now. It's so common that in fact there's a rule
against it in the HN rules,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html):

 _If your account is less than a year old, please don 't submit comments
saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a common semi-noob illusion, as
old as the hills._

(And that rule itself was written at least 5 years ago.)

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teekno
/gif its happening

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guelo
God damn it. Now all the billionaires are lining up for a run, this is our new
dystopia. Trump's election is like the moment in Rome when Caesar crowned
himself emperor, the empire went downhill from there. We need to re-establish
the old societal norm of hating rich people or all we're going to get are
celebrity billionaires from now on. Rich people are inherently bad and evil.
They got to where they are by destroying many people along the way. All our
efforts as a society must be directed at limiting their power or our
democratic experiment is over. Bring back the guillotines!

~~~
justin
Such a bunch of bullshit. Plenty of people are rich because they are doctors,
surgeons, entrepreneurs who provided a service and created jobs.

~~~
_delirium
Nobody has ever made a billion dollars simply by being a doctor or surgeon. In
medicine, it's the pharma investors who make that kind of money, not the
people who actually work in hospitals.

~~~
CurryMath
And why would the pharma investors be bad people?

~~~
Turing_Machine
Especially since "pharma investors" includes people like the pension fund
manager who tries to make sure your grandmother keeps getting her retirement
check every month.

It's easy to gin up hatred against some mythical Scrooge McDuck character
swimming in a money bin. Not so easy when it's that kindly old lady who lives
across the street.

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pithic
Zuckerberg 2020

Trust Me, Dumb Fucks

~~~
alttab
Seriously this right here. This reason alone he will never get my vote.

His argument would have to be that he is reformed.

I'd rather vote for someone who doesn't have to come back from that -
especially since it's the reason he's made billions.

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to_bpr
>This reason alone he will never get my vote.

Would you like people to hold an off-the-cuff comment made at the age of 20
against you for the rest of your days?

I've many issues with FB, Zuckerberg and the rest of the cohort, but a comment
made 13 years ago isn't one of them.

~~~
alttab
We trusted him with our data, and he's spent the last 12 years selling it,
making billions, and manipulating news/views/free speech to fit his agenda.

How is this an off-the-cuff comment? It is his mantra. Are we somehow not
dumb-fucks for still giving him our data? Again - he's made billions because
of that comment alone.

He will never, ever, ever, get my vote.

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Mikeb85
Hiring a member of the losing team, especially one whose polling was obviously
very bad (they didn't come close to accurately predicting Clinton's popularity
or lack thereof), doesn't seem like the path to victory.

~~~
Avshalom
to be fair she won the popular by 3m, they just happened to be inefficient
votes.

~~~
Mikeb85
Which polling should have been able to reflect, and allow her to better target
some of the voters she lost.

She skipped out on campaigning in several states that flipped for Trump, and
didn't really do much to address her (un)likeability.

Edit - the US election is won or lost on electoral votes, not the popular
vote. You play to win within the rules, not to make excuses.

~~~
dragonwriter
Clinton's campaigning problems were cobsistent, IIRC, across all of her
elections; she consistently lost ground, she just had less of it to lose in
her Presidential run. (This is true not only of here Senate and Presidential
general election campaigns, but also both Presidential primaries.)

It seems likely to me that it wasn't her pollsters from all those elections
that were the weakness, but the candidate, who has a strong loyal base within
the party, limited ability to hold on to votes that initially lean her way
that aren't part of that base, and basically no ability (in part because of
hardened negative opinions on a large segment of the electorate) to swing
opposed or uncommitted voters.

