Hot on the heels of our Super Tuesday aftermath SquawkBox session with Jesse Hirsh yesterday comes CNET's Declan McCullagh with Obama loses Silicon Valley to Clinton: Is anyone suprised?. The point that McCullagh makes is that online popularity doesn't necessarily translate to the ballot box — a point Jesse made yesterday when he said:
Ron Paul, if the Internet were the electorate, would be the president. He has such incredible, fanatical, motivated, passionate supporters out there. In the last quarter of 2007 he raised more money than any other Republican candidate. He set records with more than $6 million in a day, all of this spontaneous and autonomous and outside of the control of his campaign. These are crazy red-neck Americans who are totally dissatisfied with the political process as a whole and he's their Ross Perot 2008. It's incredible the sophistication of their efforts, the tenacity, the pervasiveness. If only he wasn't such an idiot! If he was a better candidate to make more with the millions he has he wouldn't be a write-off.
Ouch!
Go listen to the rest of our conversation with Jesse. His observations on how the Clinton and Obama online campaigns differ are pretty interesting.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
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Actually, Obama won Silicon Valley. See election results for the 14th Congr. Distr. from the CA Secr. of State at http://vote.ss.ca.gov/Returns/dcd/1459.htm
The 14th Congressional District contains Silicon Valley, according to Wikipedia