kopoint:

Answer: buy all of the seats in the house. Great election character analysis from @Slate:

Straw polls, by definition, are nonbinding, so they have fewer rules than do real elections. And unlike opinion polls conducted by national organizations such as Gallup and Pew Research, a straw poll isn’t supposed to be a random sample of the population. Instead, those polled at events such as CPAC and the Ames Straw Poll are simply the people who happen to show up. That means the candidate who turns out the largest number of backers will win. One easy way to get out the straw vote is to buy up a bunch of tickets, then hand them out for free to your supporters. Paying for their transportation to the event can’t hurt. And wining and dining them once they’re there is always a nice touch. Since the CPAC straw poll typically involves about 3,500 people, you might only need to pay for a few hundred voters to tilt the poll in your favor.

Think of this not as a story about Apple, but about a commentary on Western culture and globalism.

kopoint:

Mike Daisey was a self-described “worshipper in the cult of Mac.” Then he saw some photos from a new iPhone, taken by workers at the factory where it was made. Mike wondered: Who makes all my crap? He traveled to China to find out.

Listen to the Episode -»

kopoint:

Slate: Five years in the making, Romney’s Iowa win took a lot more than money.

It was the ability to pinpoint and track supporters that settled Romney’s decision to publicly commit to winning Iowa late this fall. Romney’s campaign made a big show of converting the former video store into a headquarters, while spending millions on local television ads and dispatching the candidate to travel the state more aggressively than he had. But a ruthless yet largely invisible strategy had already been in place for much of the year, tracking both Romney’s supporters and his opponents. Only when Romney’s count appeared to exceed any rival’s did advisers unveil the trappings of a traditional caucus campaign.

In 2007 and 2008, during the emergence of social media, I covered the presidential campaign for the Talk Radio News Service. Tomorrow I depart for a few weeks on the road covering the 2012 campaign.

Some of my time  - particularly early in the primary process – will be spent creating content independently for the KoPoint Wire. I’ll also do some fun stuff alongside SoundCloud, Talk Radio News, and a few smaller organizations. Twitter and Google+ will be my primary status platforms, I’ll push audio reports and tour thoughts to mySoundCloud account, use Tumblr to curate campaign related social news, post photos and snapshots to Instagram, and summarize social campaign content with Storify.

The majority of my time will be spent on a bus tour with Americans Elect. Americans Elect is a non-partisan organization that aims to place an independent candidate on the ballot in all 50 states in the 2012 General Election. From their website:

THE GOAL OF AMERICANS ELECT is to nominate a presidential ticket that answers directly to voters—not the political system. American voters are tired of politics as usual. They want leaders that will put their country before their party, and American interests before special interests. Leaders who will work together to develop fresh solutions to the serious challenges facing our country. We believe a secure, online nominating process will prove that America is ready for a competitive, nonpartisan ticket.

I will be creating content for and I will be covering much of the campaign for Americans Elect, but I am not a voice for or of the organization. To this point we’ve had a great relationship and I’m fascinated with their passion for post-partisan politics. But we are independent actors and my role is to make media with and cover the campaign with Americans Elect, but not necessairly to endorse their position(s). This relationship is great as it allows them to leverage the transparency and trust equity of journalism, and allows me to have full, up-close access to an emerging movement.

I’ve long maintained that social media represents the democratization of the dissemination of information. The next few weeks are sure to be intense, but I’m incredibly excited about digging deep concurrently in to both politics and emerging media. Our team will be traveling the east coast and I’ll spend as much time on the streets talking with social media voters. I’d love to hear from you and your thoughts on the impact of social media on politics.

Take care. See you soon.

- Dan

So it looks like I’ll be on the trail for five weeks solid, give or take. Details on this TK next week, but the purpose is to integrate your ideas and questions about policy and candidates in to the reporting process. I’d love your thoughts.

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