Data science and cloud computing win most political campaigns

Back in college I did computer consulting for political consulting firms in the Washington D.C. area. Working on both sides of the political spectrum, I set up CP/M-based PCs (dating myself) on these new things called local area networks. The idea was to provide basic campaign processes, such as direct mail and phone list management, to support state, local, and federal campaigns. The systems in campaign offices are 10,000 times more sophisticated, typically with data moved out to public cloud providers, and advanced data science maximizing the effectiveness of known data for campaigns. The most valuable person in a modern campaign is no longer the campaign manager, but those charged with leveraging the data to effectively target campaign resources.