From that ORCA article:

Among other issues, the system was never beta-tested or checked for functionality without going live before Election Day, two sources said. It went live that morning but was never checked for bugs or efficiencies internally.

"Hey, it worked in the unit test, who needs QA!"

Vindicates my profession, I tell you what.

Note, (for above discussion): Presidential campaign accounts (and perhaps those for Senate and House) remain "open" for 2 years so that various expenses can be paid, etc. There was no need to cut off credit cards on election day.

Oh yeah -- I wasn't saying I thought it was right or made sense, just that I could imagine the (stupid, but maybe not evil) train of thought that led to it happening.

I got a call from a local UPS lady, who said she would "ask" the driver if he could come back to my house. Are you fucking kidding me with that? Should I call the main number back to report that, since it's so ridiculous?

Well, that ORCA failure explains why the Romney people were so shocked that they lost on election day. They thought they were hitting their numbers and getting out their voters.

That is an incredible failure in the organization and running of the campaign.

even if they GOTV, there is some question regarding whether they would have one. Their models vastly underestimated Obama's voters - so much so that their GOTV would have made it closer, but probably would not have affected the final outcome.

Yeah, the ORCA thing was pushed in a marketing sense by people who lacked understanding of the technical issues. One example: they called it an "app" when it was actually a web app. As a result, many volunteers tried to find it in the Android store, which resulted in more wasted effort.

One of the things I keep seeing over and over is that they (GOP and Romney) really believed that somehow the last election was a fluke and a lot of people who voted then just weren't going to show up to vote.

Not that these people would vote for Romney but they just would not vote.

When Bain Capital owned Houghton-Mifflin, they decided to completely remake the IT department so that everything ran under SAP... And then let everyone go who had much experience with "other stuff" instead of retraining them so they'd retain the important corporate memory of what the other stuff was actually supposed to do instead of the badly ported vague idea that the SAP applications implemented.

It wasn't Romney-era Bain, but all too representative of that kind of thinking.

I understand Bain made a healthy profit when they sold an ailing HMCo the next year.

You guys, I really want to run to the mountaintop and scream wildly with gleeful abandon about something. And since I can't do that, can I share it here? So you know that FB post I wrote? Calling out the hateful language some of my extended family have been using about Democrats and Obama?

My aunt Sharon, who is NOT someone who ever posts anti-Obama stuff, but who is a conservative fundamentalist missionary in Kenya (where she's lived since 1985), wrote me this in a private FB message:

Hello dear niece, I can understand your feelings on having to read the posts the evangelicals (whether family or friends) continually posted leading up to and right after our presidential election. I think most of the posts were unwise at the least and inflammatory at the worst.

In politics we should stick to policies though our faith and what we believe at the most basic level will always guide us as we vote. When it becomes so personal that we express ourselves in derogatory ways we show our lack of respect for others and their beliefs. We can respect someone without agreeing and if we do disagree we can do it in a constructive way. If I believe I am created in image of God then all the others are also in his image and deserve respect. Love you, Aunt Sharon

I just love my aunt Sharon so much. She mostly raised me, and despite our differences, this core of love unites us. I may be crying all day about her letters. She wrote another one after this, actually apologizing for "bigotry and zealotry" shown by others in our extended family.

She is right on the money! Go, Aunt Sharon.

Ginger, were you one of these voters?