“With Private Effort on Voter Information, Ickes and Soros Challenge Dean and DNC—A group of well-connected Democrats led by a former top aide to Bill Clinton is raising millions of dollars to start a private firm that plans to compile huge amounts of data on Americans to identify Democratic voters and blunt what has been a clear Republican lead in using technology for political advantage.
The effort by Harold Ickes, a deputy chief of staff in the Clinton White House and an adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), is prompting intense behind-the-scenes debate in Democratic circles. Officials at the Democratic National Committee think that creating a modern database is their job, and they say that a competing for-profit entity could divert energy and money that should instead be invested with the national party.
“From an institutional standpoint, this is one of the most important things the DNC can and should do. Building this voter file is part of our job,” Communications Director Karen Finney said. “We believe this is something we have to do at the DNC. Our job is to build the infrastructure of the party.”
-from the front page story in Wednesday’s Washington Post by Thomas B. Edsall.
Howie opinion: Blue State Digital, the company that the DNC has been using for this work, was originally created using a grant from Soros, also. It is unfortunate that this effort has now become “privatized” and, apparently, the information from the new company, Data Warehouse, will be used in the future to assist only those who can pay for, or somehow can otherwise arrange to receive the information, outside the Democratic party structure.
