My Dean research job explained.
Oct. 13th, 2003 08:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaToday was my first official day as an issues tracker for the Dean campaign. I'd done a dry run on Saturday afternoon, researching my issues and entering them into the database, but today I was working to the campaign's schedule for the first time.
Here's what I do. I'm resposible for tracking four social issues: HIV/AIDS, drug addiction and treatment, housing, and Native American issues. Every weekday morning, the campaign policy staff responsible for those areas need to be updated on the most recent news and activity related to those issues. My priorities are (1) anything mentioning the issue and Howard Dean, (2) anything mentioning the issue and the Bush administration, (3) anything mentioning the issue and Dean's Democratic rivals, and (4) any major news, even if it doesn't mention a candidate. I enter the articles I find into a wiki set up by the campaign, creating a traditional weblog sort of page with the link and a juicy quote or two plus separate pages with the full text of each article. At 9am EDT, someone downloads everything I collected and gives it to the policy staff responsible for my areas.
This morning I selected eight articles for them: John Kerry was criticized on the campaign trail for missing some AIDS votes in Congress; a national medical marijuana group is targeting Vermont legislators (Dean is mentioned); the Bush administration is objecting to a Canadian plan to make cheap AIDS drugs for export to poor countries; Gray Davis vetoed a needle exchange bill; the DEA is raiding Oregon medical marijuana growers licensed by the state; the Supreme Court will hear a test case on applying the Americans with Disabilities Act to recovering drug addicts; advocates for the poor are criticizing Bush's urban development and housing policies; and Gray Davis signed a bill extending Indian gaming in California.
It took me about an hour. I'm hoping - and expecting - that I'll speed up as I refine my search strategy. This morning's research certainly took less time than Saturday's, when I was still learning how to use the wiki and was also searching exhaustively. (It didn't occur to me until this morning, for example, that I don't need to search all the Democratic candidates separately, because almost any story mentioning them will use the word 'Democrat' or 'Democratic.')
I still feel really, really good about being selected to do this.
Here's what I do. I'm resposible for tracking four social issues: HIV/AIDS, drug addiction and treatment, housing, and Native American issues. Every weekday morning, the campaign policy staff responsible for those areas need to be updated on the most recent news and activity related to those issues. My priorities are (1) anything mentioning the issue and Howard Dean, (2) anything mentioning the issue and the Bush administration, (3) anything mentioning the issue and Dean's Democratic rivals, and (4) any major news, even if it doesn't mention a candidate. I enter the articles I find into a wiki set up by the campaign, creating a traditional weblog sort of page with the link and a juicy quote or two plus separate pages with the full text of each article. At 9am EDT, someone downloads everything I collected and gives it to the policy staff responsible for my areas.
This morning I selected eight articles for them: John Kerry was criticized on the campaign trail for missing some AIDS votes in Congress; a national medical marijuana group is targeting Vermont legislators (Dean is mentioned); the Bush administration is objecting to a Canadian plan to make cheap AIDS drugs for export to poor countries; Gray Davis vetoed a needle exchange bill; the DEA is raiding Oregon medical marijuana growers licensed by the state; the Supreme Court will hear a test case on applying the Americans with Disabilities Act to recovering drug addicts; advocates for the poor are criticizing Bush's urban development and housing policies; and Gray Davis signed a bill extending Indian gaming in California.
It took me about an hour. I'm hoping - and expecting - that I'll speed up as I refine my search strategy. This morning's research certainly took less time than Saturday's, when I was still learning how to use the wiki and was also searching exhaustively. (It didn't occur to me until this morning, for example, that I don't need to search all the Democratic candidates separately, because almost any story mentioning them will use the word 'Democrat' or 'Democratic.')
I still feel really, really good about being selected to do this.
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no subject
Date: 2003-10-13 06:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-13 07:06 am (UTC)Oh, and I also want Dean to win. ;-)
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Date: 2003-10-13 06:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-13 06:46 am (UTC)-J
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Date: 2003-10-13 07:04 am (UTC)It may in fact have something to do with linguistics not tending to be a major campaign issue, but it also seems to be true that Dean is using the grassroots in nontraditional ways. Part of it is that they're encouraging their supporters to plan and carry out their own campaign events, but another part of it is broadening the kinds of tasks traditionally done by volunteers. I know, for example, that they've had volunteer web developers setting up webpages for people who wanted to have a campaign-promoting site but didn't know how to do it.
Can you tell that I really admire the process of the Dean campaign as well as the content?
happy dance!!
Date: 2003-10-13 08:40 am (UTC)Re: happy dance!!
Date: 2003-10-13 08:59 am (UTC)We want to stay away from "Larry" and "Ed" territory, though. :)
Re: happy dance!!
Date: 2003-10-13 09:53 am (UTC)Re: happy dance!!
Date: 2003-10-13 10:34 am (UTC)tracking issues
Date: 2003-10-13 08:43 am (UTC)If I were doing it, I would probably start at http://news.google.com.
You might want to take a look at http://www.allconsuming.net/ -- _hourly_ tracking of
books mentioned on blogs and news websites. That's not what you want to do; but their methods might be useful.
Re: tracking issues
Date: 2003-10-13 09:56 am (UTC)Google's search engines are so good that I find it hard to justify using anything else.
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Date: 2003-10-13 09:47 am (UTC)Gessi