Kansas Nerd Uses Net To Shake Up Political Fundraising 179
ghostlibrary sends a note about Sean Tevis, an information architect in Kansas, who is running for state representative with the help of an xkcd lookalike cartoon and grassroots Net-based fundraising. Tevis had garnered more than 6,000 contributions, most of them small, from around the country, far out-fundraising his opponent. Major news outlets have picked up the story as a harbinger of 21st-century Net-based political campaigning. Reader ghostlibrary adds, "As a bonus, Tevis cites xkcd intentionally (rather than just ripping it off without crediting it) and, well, it's actually funny."
Results of the election (Score:5, Funny)
"Strangely, he won the election with a +5, Insightful."
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Note to voters: go to his ralleys with signs that say "+5, Insightful" and "+5, Informative"!
How about some links? (Score:5, Informative)
Tevis' website [seantevis.com] and the comic in question [seantevis.com] should get most people started.
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Saw this last week... (Score:4, Insightful)
and donated even though I don't live in his state and I typically don't vote Democrat (don't vote Republican, either). We need new blood in political office... people who are a little more 'in' with technology, etc.
Re:Saw this last week... (Score:5, Funny)
I live next to State Line Road on the Missouri side. Kansas needs all the help they can get! I donated to keep the grass greener over there!
Re:Saw this last week... (Score:5, Funny)
We need new blood in political office... people who are a little more 'in' with technology, etc.
Great, then we'll just have them wasting time filibustering measure to declare Vi better than Emacs, or KDE better than Gnome.
Re:Saw this last week... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh get real. What kind of an idiot would put someone in office who uses Vi or KDE? I mean give me a break.
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To mods: Whoosh.
To AC: I fully support a filibuster to kill Emacs and GNOME.
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I can see Linus and Theo drafting legislation that would cure all disease, end hunger and create world peace, but then being unable to pass it because they can't agree on what license to release it under.
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Strom Thurmond still holds the record for longest filibuster (24 hours 18 minutes). I'd always heard that he did this by reading the names from the DC phonebook (though some cursory searching indicates that Al D'Amato might've used that trick when he got the second longest record, just under 24 hours). I'd like to see someone step up to the mike on the Senate floor, and start reading the source code for gcc, or the Linux kernel, or maybe something truly monstrous like OpenOffice.org. That would be one for t
Re:Saw this last week... (Score:4, Insightful)
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They could read the 6000 page OOXML specification. It would take just as long, and would probably prove a good point in the process.
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It's not the reading material, it's the speaker's endurance. Can you stay awake and lucid for 10 days straight? Somehow I doubt it.
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real geeks get their filibusters automatically generated from c++ compiler error output
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So? Is that worse than what we have now?
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We need new blood in political office... people who are a little more 'in' with technology, etc.
"Intelligent Design" Kansas more than anyone.
He's got my $8.34.
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I live in Canada... and I donated $10.00. Hell, I don't care where this guy is getting elected: If I can help influence an election by my tiny donation toward a tech-literate progressive, I'll do it.
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Hmmm. Maybe he can use my money to buy delicious coffee, then.
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What I want to know is where we can donate to a new political party like that in bulk. I say form one now and take over the government. there's literally no way that we wouldn't look better than both other parties combined right now.
Black Hat Man for Office! (Score:4, Funny)
Dammit. And here I was hoping we could elect BHM...
Although, I guess BHO is only one letter off. Or two, depending on your metric.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I still have no idea why anyone would give this guy money or vote for him. Is it just because he's a nerd?
Let's look at his education policy [seantevis.com]. Apparently his entire platform on education is "we should have the best schools". How would he go about making that happen, you ask? Why it's simple! By making sure they're the best, of course!
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You hear that Sean? I have an education policy for you, and it'll only cost you a cup of coffee.
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I think you are wrong. By not taking their responsibility, you place it directly in their hands where it should be. And actually there is no force involved... they can choose to be responsible and live a full life, or choose to waste their life. I'm not doing any thing to them other than giving them a choice. The real difference of opinion here seems to be that you see other people's problems as yours to solve.
Just to wrap it up, I think "Public Assistance" as it
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Not to be partisan, but he's a Democrat. Which means I find it difficult to believe he would be able/willing to go up against teachers' unions and install performance based standards.
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Since he is not taking cash directly from the unions, I do not see why he would have a problem with going up against them.
END COMMUNICATION
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Not to be partisan, but he's a Democrat. Which means I find it difficult to believe he would be able/willing to go up against teachers' unions and install performance based standards.
Shouldn't be a problem, so long as he also goes up against the school boards and principals, and requires that they provide every teacher with students of equivalent background and ability.
That "performance based standards" stuff is very hard to do right. The easy, cheap, stupid (NCLB) way is just to have some standardized tes
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly.
Also, an eye-opener was, that that same guy originally had some weird attitude about immigrants, a la "american jobs only for american people", which he switched, when a huge cryout from the /. rolled over him...
And I really think he already was mentioned on /. some time (weeks-months) ago, at least I recall a particular cartoon, that with the 20$ thing.
Please chaps, please think twice before giving a guy money just because he is "from the internets".
And please stop political advertising on /., it really sucks, no matter who it is.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
While I haven't donated, I say give the guy a chance. Has he thought everything through? Probably not, but our political system is filled with the merely ignorant to the truly cretinous caricatures or corruption. If he wins I'll be interested in following his story, see how an outsider does.
Or to put it another way, do we have good reason to put much faith in this guy? No, but we have a whole lot of reasons to not put any faith in the other guys.
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Well, while there is nothing wrong with having a good technology policy and so earning the election and funding bonus for (almost) being a nerd, there is something wrong with getting money through it AND indulging in policies about topics like immigration in the way he did. Irritating that he didn't leave neither his original policy ("american jobs for american people"), nor his reaction to the community ("ok, now i see my primary source of funding (the internets) doesn't like that, so i revert and remove i
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Wow. Your entire post is one big capitulation to mediocrity. It boils down to "sure he's not good, but neither is anyone else, so why demand better?" I guess we get the elected officials we deserve.
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Well somebody has to represent the sub 5th decile...
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And please stop political advertising on /., it really sucks, no matter who it is.
I couldn't agree more, I hate that shit.
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And this is a problem why? What is weird about that sentiment?
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Nah. He is like "I don't have a policy on immigration, so give me money for my policy on technology." - but indeed, he HAD and very probably still has a policy on immigrantion. But where can I read about it?
After all, the whole guy goes into office, not just the part of him with the cool technology policy and the comic.
Wait, you're telling me... (Score:5, Insightful)
... someone running for a state representative spot isn't posturing as having the answer to every single problem?
This is a problem with politics. What we need in government are people who know a lot about certain fields, who are willing to listen to others who know a lot about other fields.
Instead, as the parent post so painfully illustrates, what we as voters do is vote for the people who claim to have ALL the answers. And guess what? The ones who claim to know the answers to everything are the ones who don't know crap about anything.
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It's a good point. Arguably, this is the reason for having political parties. He could say "well I don't have a detailed policy on that issue, but I like what my colleague has".
More to the point, though, the job requires being able to make decisions on pretty much everything. It would be nice to able to say "you don't have to know everything", but, well...you're only going to be able to do part of your job then, aren't you?
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Apparently he's doesn't know enough and is going to have some experts help him! Can you believe the nerve of that guy?
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.
The successful politician knows what is important to the voters in his home district. The problem for the geek is in making his issues compelling and a priority to the voters in any district.
The retiree in New York is thinking about how the devil he is going to pay his winter heating bills and the chance that he might loss his h
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I think what is most important in a candidate is being able to logically think about things.
This means listening to opposing opinions, thinking things through, and not bending one's values in compromise votes, if the issue is important (like Constitutionality).
Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, look at his opponent's issues page [arlensiegfreid.com] and you'll find even less than that. According to vote smart [votesmart.org], the incumbent has voted in line with the Kansas Association of School Boards only 10% of the time in 2006, despite his claims of supporting "Quality Education". It's hard to imagine Sean doing worse.
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Well, look at his opponent's issues page [arlensiegfreid.com] and you'll find even less than that. According to vote smart [votesmart.org], the incumbent has voted in line with the Kansas Association of School Boards only 10% of the time in 2006, despite his claims of supporting "Quality Education". It's hard to imagine Sean doing worse.
So, let's see if I understand your thinking. Our schools stink. This politician says he is for Quality Education, but he disagrees with the people who run our schools (which stink), therefor he must not really be for Quality Education.
As a general rule, if you think the schools need fixing, it is probably a good idea to vote for a politician who is not in the pocket of the School Boards. If you want to improve the schools, then, most of the time, you want to vote against the guy who is endorsed by the
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I think that your presuming that because a school isn't doing well it's automatically the fault of the school board or teacher's union is simplifying things a bit much (as well as being a bit insulting to teachers). So is assuming that everything a school board is for is automatically self-serving status quo preservation--votes on budgeting for facilities or textbooks are the simplest counter example there.
Regardless, an elected representative who wants to improve education but is deemed hostile by the sch
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. . .the incumbent has voted in line with the Kansas Association of School Boards only 10% of the time in 2006, despite his claims of supporting "Quality Education". It's hard to imagine Sean doing worse.
Wait. . . the incumbent is usually voting against the Kansas School Board. . . the same school board that only wants Unintelligent Design taught to school children? Well, he's got my vote, now!
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The intelligent design mess was done by the Kansas State Board of Education [wikipedia.org]. According to Wikipedia's sources [wikipedia.org], that was primarily a Republican driven agenda. The guy you should said you would vote for? Odds are good he's aligned with them, and that (particularly when you also stare at his voting record on things like abortion) his idea of "Quality Education" and "Family Values" are religiously based. Congratulations on your informed voting stance.
The group I was talking about, the Kansas Association of
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Yup, this is exactly why I donated to his opponent.
Why should a guy get elected just because he happens to be a geek? How about electing someone who has a clue about getting things done.
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I'd rather have nothing get done than have the wrong things get done.
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I still have no idea why anyone would give this guy money or vote for him
he doesn't have to be perfect, he just has to be better than his opponent. Read the comic [seantevis.com] already. Panel 1 should do it.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Funny)
Great, just what we need. OOP.
Objective-Oriented Politics.
$KansasSchools = new SchoolSystem( 'Kansas' );
$KansasSchools->setBest( true );
$KansasSchools->save();
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I still have no idea why anyone would give this guy money or vote for him.
Why?
The very fist panel here [seantevis.com] is almost enough to make me wish I lived in Kansas just so I could vote for him. And an excellent title - It's Like A Flamewar with a Forum Troll, but with an Eventual Winner. Apparently a LOT of people are willing to donate $8.34 (or more) to downmod a Troll out of office.
I looked over the rest of his site, which only reaffirmed that first impression. He seems like a smart funny reasonable... and yes sci
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I still have no idea why anyone would give this guy money or vote for him. Is it just because he's a nerd?
Cause he'll send you a video of his Mom?
From his site:
$500 - We'll send you a limited edition campaign t-shirt, a coffee mug with the Kansas flag on it, and a DVD video from Sean Tevis' mom telling you how wonderful you are, because you are.
soliciting for money from non-consituents is wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
It's morally bankrupt at best.
The people in these positions should represent those in their districts, not those from other places (like affluent Silicon Valley where I live).
Re:soliciting for money from non-consituents is wr (Score:2)
I'm not sure where the relativistic logic is in this "stance".
The moral corruption is that money is an overriding lever for political success, not the source(s). In the winner-takes-all, money-makes-the-campaign, incumbant-safety-through-populace-lethargy, there's nothing immoral about an intelligent representative gathering funds by a
he should not be beholden to those outside (Score:4, Insightful)
His district. Not even a micropayment's worth.
Let me put it this way, me and my buddies here in Silicon Valley could easy drop many thousands (hundreds of thousands if we do it as a group) on political races in Alabama, selecting candidates that represent our views, trying to make behave the way we want (pro-choice, etc.)
But that wouldn't be right. Everyone is entitled to select representatives that represent them, and not those who live thousands of miles away.
This person should be working within his community. That's where he's going to have effect anyway.
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Let me put it this way, me and my buddies here in Silicon Valley could easy drop many thousands (hundreds of thousands if we do it as a group) on political races in Alabama, selecting candidates that represent our views, trying to make behave the way we want (pro-choice, etc.) But that wouldn't be right. Everyone is entitled to select representatives that represent them, and not those who live thousands of miles away.
Last time I checked candidates were elected based on the number of votes they received,
if fund-raising didn't affect elections (Score:2)
Candidates wouldn't bother doing it.
You are incredibly naive.
And just because it might be possible to influence their elections due to their voters' foolishness, doesn't mean it's moral. As I mentioned above.
You're using the same "well, no one is stopping me so it must be okay" justifications that Enron employees did.
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I never said fund raising doesn't have an effect on elections. But please don't equate a causation between fundraising and election success. Sure, there may be a correlation, but a candidate is elected strictly on the number of votes she receives from her constituents.
It is amoral for a person in Silicon Valley to illegally vote in an election in Alabama. But I fail to see the amorality in contributing to a campaign.
Here's an analogy: the more (positive) air time a candidate gets on television, radio, the
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Yes, it is unfair (and essentially amoral) for a TV station to give airtime to one candidate and not another.
I have no idea what you are saying with the thing about submitting slashdot articles.
How about you stop trying to tell me I'm telling people what they can and cannot do? I said it was amoral. Did I say it should be illegal? Did I even tell anyone to not do it?
I pointed out it was amoral (in my opinion). You get to make your own decisions about whether to do it or not. I put it this way specifically b
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Yes, it is unfair (and essentially amoral) for a TV station to give airtime to one candidate and not another.
How do you figure? I would think a privately owned television station would have it's own rights to blather on about whatever opponents it so chooses. E.g., Air America radio gives props to Democratic candidates, Fox talk radio to Republicans. Are these stations, radio personalities, managers, and stockholders acting amorally?
If it is amoral, why? Because they are a major media outlet? What if it's a less popular station? What if it's a blog? What if it's one guy standing on the street corner?
How about you stop trying to tell me I'm telling people what they can and cannot do? I said it was amoral. Did I say it should be illegal? Did I even tell anyone to not do it?
Fair enough. A
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I can't stand Air America or Fox talk radio. Talk radio is just a breeding ground for radicalism. Even the sports fans go nutty on sports talk radio!
These stations have an agenda that I don't like. But it's pretty likely none of them are changing any minds with their programming, you don't listen unless you're already primed with the same ideas you're gonna hear.
I'm more concerned with what local stations do. Those that are supposed to be serving the community in some way (oh, such a forgotten concept). I t
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The story states that over 93% of political campaigns are won by the person with the most money.
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Yes, but most people interpret the causation backwards.
The guy with the most money doesn't get the most votes; the guy with the most supporters tends to get the most money *and* the most votes; the people who are going to vote for candidate A aren't very likely to contribute money to candidate B after all.
One of the joys of the internet... (Score:2)
... is that if nobody in local politics gives a ghost of a crap about whatever you care about, you can have the satisfaction of donating to someone who's trying to make headway on the problem somewhere.
Admittedly, the potential for abuse is massive. However, if efforts like this succeed and continue to succeed, it'll eventually cause "traditional" politicians to notice.
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Yeeeahhhhh.....
And his opponent expects to raise about $3,000 from local voter contributions, out of his anticipated $35,000 or so warchest.
You are sooooooo right! The only proper politician is one beholden to the lobbyists and corporate contributors that supply 90+% of the money to buy his election.
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Actually, campaign finance laws mean you can't just drop your own wealth into someone else's pocket. At least in Kansas, donors are limited to a $500 per year. You'd have to set up multiple PACs and whatever else instead.
But fuck it. This is the way the system works. There's no law against outside donations. In the past year, the incumbent has recieved [ks.gov] large contributions [ks.gov] from Humana, based in Kentucky. Sure they have a national reach, including Kansas, but why should corporations be granted some right to i
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immoral != illegal
It's not illegal for him to solicit donations from out of state, but that doesn't make it moral.
That doesn't even make sense. According to the comic and the Pew Institute study it cites, the candidate that spends more on advertising wins. By letting this guy buy more advertising than his competitor, the external donations are directly a
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The fact it isn't illegal doesn't make it moral or immoral excepting that a choice to run implies a commitment to represent views and committing an illegal act forfeits the entirety of the effort, resulting in net fraud. That's the immorality I was referencing. Many people's arguments won't make sense to you when you don't have an understanding of moral basics (and their different flavors).
No its morally backrupted... (Score:2)
His incumbent opposition only expects to raise $35,000 and apparently money is the main factor in winning or losing the seat.
The annual salary is $169,000 plus benefits for a two year term. After five years, you get the retirement and health package as other federal employees.
And there is also that "legislative power" thing. Crazy.
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No, no, NO. Money does not win you the seat. Winning the seat wins you the money.
Or, put another way, money is a barometer of votes. If somebody is going to vote for you, they're more likely to give you money than to give your opponent money. The more popular you are, the more contributions you're going to get. Similarly, the more popular, the more votes you're going to get. Hence, the guy who winds up winning has probably received the
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For a two year term. Still, it's decent pay for a machine that only carries around 10-30k in cash.
Re:soliciting for money from non-consituents is wr (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed. I'm also not donating, because I'm not a US citizen (nor do I even live in the US). But, if I was ALLOWED to donate, I almost certainly would. Same applies for Barack Obama.
Now, some people reading this may ask, "why would this guy donate to a politician in a country he doesn't live in?" (or even, "a 'minor' politician in a state he's never even been to?"). The answer is actually pretty simple - the more politicians, ANYWHERE that support the same things I agree with, makes the world a better place in my eyes. Maybe one day I'll want to (or need to) visit Kansas. If I do, then in some way, the laws and policies of the place may have an effect on me. Or maybe I'll meet an American tourist over here, and become good friends - they might just happen to be from Kansas, and I'm always in favour of my friends having a better place to live!
It's a small world, and almost everything, everywhere, affects almost everything else, everywhere else.
View Source (Score:5, Interesting)
View page source (on his xkcd-style ad) for a hidden message to geeks.
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I would respect it more if the html (or xhtml in this case) would be actually valid. It is not even close.
54 errors:
http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fseantevis.com%2Fkansas%2F3000%2Frunning-for-office-xkcd-style%2F [w3.org]
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http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fpolitics.slashdot.org%2Farticle.pl%3Fsid%3D08%2F08%2F16%2F1748246%26from%3Drss&charset=(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0 [w3.org]
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Thanks for the tip! My donation had the specified number of cents in it. (:
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Job title inflation. (Score:2)
Why would we give him that horrid job title and didn't information architect just exist as one of those "we cannot give you money but will give you a neat job title" that died off with the dot com bubble?
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He's probably the only Web guy for his company. I imagine you can negotiate whatever title you want at that point.
The actual cartoon post (Score:4, Informative)
Here's the actual cartoon on his blog:
http://seantevis.com/kansas/3000/running-for-office-xkcd-style/ [seantevis.com]
Stick figures and witty dialogue (Score:3, Insightful)
sigh (Score:2)
Electoral Represensitive web site ... (Score:2)
Maybe we need something similar to dating web sites for our politicians? No, not a dating web site for politicians, but one where they can present themselves to the people in their area. Basically all registered representatives would create a profile, describe their platform and why you should be supporting them and then you can donate how ever much you wish to their platform. With a solution like this you could quickly compare the representatives available to you and support if you wish. The only question
Thanks for all your comments (Score:5, Informative)
Running for state rep means earning the trust of many voters in a few short months. Word of mouth goes a long way, but voters can't be reached effectively by email. The net's contributions make it possible for me to keep up a full time campaign at five nines while still keeping my day job.
I decided to run because my current state rep needed to retire. The 15th district needed someone better. I want to show the politicians in Topeka just how much difference a geek can make.
With your help I got their attention. Keep it up; we plan to show those people the power of technology. Keep checking the blog [seantevis.com] for updates and new comics.
-Sean
sean@seantevis.com
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Re:breaking news! (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, this is a month old. I gave him $10 back in July.
Anybody who comes to /. for the "scoop" is an idiot. What you come here for is the discussion with fellow geeks.
You must be new h- *checks UID of parent* -you really ought to know better by now.
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what have you done for him lately?
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Moderators and metamods I ask you: is this *really* offtopic? To have shown someone else who has achieved what the article claims who did it first is "offtopic"? Really? Or is this partisanship?
Slashdot has gone off the conservative deep end recently. It's sad, but I'm less and less likely to come here after 10 years of reading the site.
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Duh. Stick figures were invented by Sam Brown [explodingdog.com].