http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/anderkoo Anderson + Koo = Anderkoo Tue, 14 Oct 2008 06:06:56 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en A fresh pair of articles is shining light back on to the Obama ground operations, which -- presuming victory on November 4 -- will be remembered as one of the deepest and most robust political startups in modern history. Zack Exley's in-depth piece on "The New Organizers" in the Huffington ... http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/anderkoo/2008/10/14/a-network-analysis-of-the-obama-08-campaign/ Arthur C. Clarke's third law reads: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." What's the difference between technology and magic? As this blog post points out, "magic" is the halting of inquiry. With that formulation, it's possible that science can paradoxically plunge us into a second Dark Ages, when ... http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/anderkoo/2008/10/10/the-black-magic-of-financial-innovation/ As a matter of public relations, no one has ever gone wrong blaming financial disasters on "greed." But we all know that greed is the basic engine of capitalism. Greed may not be "good," but it's there, and we rely on it to power our modern economy. So the problem ... http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/anderkoo/2008/10/09/an-economist-is-lying-when-he-blames-greed/ Conservative think-tank dead-enders keep insisting that the blame for the market and financial crisis lays at the feet of do-gooder efforts at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, all the way back to the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, to help more Americans buy homes. I have never believed in the ... http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/anderkoo/2008/10/07/laundering-risk-wall-streets-mathematical-money-machine/ The New York Times' "The Measure of a President" provides visual proof that shorter candidates suffer a remarkable handicap in winning the Presidency. Part of the blame surely lies with the media, which regularly taints their coverage with heightist phrases like "Despite his diminutive stature..." And don't get started with ... http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/anderkoo/2008/10/06/short-people-for-obama/ Ed Cone of CIO Insight has published a series, "How the Obama Campaign is Using Technology to Change Elections on the Ground." (Big ups to Baratunde for the tip). There's a few tidbits here and there worth repeating: "It's the difference between open and closed source." -- Cyrus Krohn, director of ... http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/anderkoo/2008/10/03/obamanology/ Compare the YouTube pages of the McCain and Obama campaigns, and you'll also get a glimpse of how very different their strategies are. Both feature 30- and 60-second advertisements, but Obama also offers a wide range of other pieces that include speeches and rallies, calls to action, and, increasingly, videos ... http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/anderkoo/2008/10/03/how-new-media-hypercharges-traditional-organizing/ I don't live in the Second Suffolk District, where a heated battle is underway between incumbent State Senator Diane Wilkerson and challenger Sonia Chang-Diaz, the challenger who won the Democratic nomination last week. I have no standing to evaluate whether Wilkerson or Chang-Diaz is more capable of representing that District's ... http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/anderkoo/2008/10/02/lydia-lowe-doesnt-speak-for-me/ Total economic meltdown sure is confusing, isn't it? So where to turn for helpful information? Well, the sense I'm getting is: while many experts know and agree on what's happening (collapse of mortgages and mortgage-backed derivatives, collapse of other lines of credit, credit crunch across the board), we are in uncharted ... http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/anderkoo/2008/10/01/trying-to-understand-what-is-going-on/ New survey out from the Wall Street Journal / NBC / MySpace. Full report. The WSJ's read on this was that new voters were less likely than the poll of all voters to vote this November ("very interested" = 49% vs. 70%). However, what I find interesting is that this ... http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/anderkoo/2008/10/01/poll-of-newlapsed-voters-confirm-reject-stereotypes/