Perfect timing:
Just days after Donald J. Trump’s surprise presidential victory, the nation’s professional political forecasters and persuaders — the pollsters, the ad creators, the campaign strategists — gathered in Denver for their annual convention. It was supposed to be a celebration of big data and strategic wizardry for a multibillion-dollar industry that has spent nearly a century packaging political candidates.
Instead, the conference of the International Association of Political Consultants felt like a therapy session for a business in psychological free fall. ...
The industry has ... evolved into a sophisticated army of data analysts, message crafters and others whose firms turn billions of dollars given to candidates and their surrogates into services. Television advertisements. Email lists. Get-out-the-vote strategies.
But everything about this election seemed to throw into question the value of those tactics — and even of the consultants themselves. In the end, Mrs. Clinton’s battalion of advisers was defeated by a wild, seemingly unchoreographed candidate who, according to the most recent data, spent more money on shirts, hats, signs and similar items than on field consulting, voter lists and data.
Over the weekend, 150 or so participants moved between a high-ceilinged conference room at the Westin hotel and other activities, including the reception at the governor’s mansion and a dinner at an adobe fort in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. (Organizers nixed a tour of a marijuana grow house after too many people expressed interest.)
via www.nytimes.com
There is more of interest in the article (and some related to this post*) but I need to stop there and imagine all of those political consultants just wanting to get high.
*Theories that undecided voters (there were a lot of them in the polls) thought that HRC was a better choice but voted for DJT out of anger
