The Washington Post offers an article whose main theme is “What are the Obama folks going to do with this giant internet community they’ve created? Along the way, they reported some striking-sounding facts and figures, including:
- The Obama campaign had 95 employees in its internet operations. (Full-time? If so, that’s a lot, especially considering the level of effort outside the campaign, e.g. in the great viral personalized get-out-the-vote video.)
- The Obama e-mail database is 10 million strong. Frankly, I’ve seen that figure for a while, and indeed have seen it just for cell phone/text message addresses.
- At least 3.1 million people in the e-mail database actually donated money to Obama. That fits with a figure I read elsewhere suggesting Obama’s average donation was under $100.
- The Obama campaign struck a deal (not followed through on) to put up the email database as collateral for a loan. (Hello?? Privacy policy?? I guess that’s supposed to fall under “We may also make personal information available to organizations with similar political viewpoints and objectives, in furtherance of our own political objectives.” But it seems like a stretch to me.)
