Update: Barton (D) won't seek re-election in HD 40

Update 2: I have added a chart at the bottom of this post showing current voter registration in HD 40. I also have converted the charts from raw numbers to percentages to make them easier to understand. If you'd like the raw data let me know.

Update: Willamette Week notes this was the most expensive house seat in 2014. Both sides combined to spend $1.24 million on this seat.

Election season has already come to Oregon as potential candidates have begun to announce their intentions in 2016. Often news about who isn't running is just as important as who is running. This is one of those cases.

Yesterday Brent Barton announced he won't seek re-election in House District 40. This is a swing seat that Republicans targeted in 2012, and 2014 but have been unable to win.

The seat was previously held by former Speaker Dave Hunt (D).

Below are the election results for the district from 2014 and 2012. I'm working on getting current voter registration numbers and will update the post if/when I get them.

HD 40 Election 2014 Results

HD 40 Election 2012 Results

HD 40 Voter Registration

As of August 13, 2015

Sign The Petition

If you like more than a few political pages on Facebook, you might have noticed a trend. "Sign the petition to stop Hillary Clinton's lies! Sign the petition to stop Republicans from defunding Planned Parenthood." The political left, right, and center want you to sign their petitions, but these aren't your typical petitions.

These aren't actual petitions where you need to sign your name to get a measure on the ballot or repeal a law. These petitions are actually totally ineffective at doing anything except giving away your data.

In fact, these petitions are made specifically to collect data. At a minimum they require you to enter your email address in order to "sign", but more often than not they want your physical address too. Political groups use this information to identify their strongest supporters and build up their email lists. From NPR:

"Nothing comes close," to an email list, said Michael Beach, co-founder of Targeted Victory, a digital campaign firm that works with Republicans. Beach worked with Mitt Romney's campaign in 2012 and now works with Rick Perry's campaign. "Our campaigns will do 70 percent plus of their fundraising through email," he said.

On the Democratic side, the Obama camp took 90 percent of their online money from emails in 2012.

That's why you're being asked to sign all these online petitions. If a campaign or PAC can get your email, they have a cheap and effective way to ask you for money.

Google's Alphabet

From CNBC:

"This new structure will allow us to keep tremendous focus on the extraordinary opportunities we have inside of Google," Page wrote in a blog post Monday.

Originally this struck me as rather hilarious. How better for Google to focus then by creating a company called Alphabet and thereby not actually focusing on Google.

Then I read the full post and it instantly made sense.

Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main internet products contained in Alphabet instead

Google has been trying to innovate in many areas unrelated to Google's core online products. Each new venture has been burdened by the Google brand. People expect certain things from Google products. Now that Google has Alphabet (man, these companies have funny hames) they can innovate unencumbered by the expectations of a product made by Google and instead focusing on making the best product.

The Tech Elephant: How the GOP can continue to reclaim the tech advantage

Writer's note: This post orginiated as a special piece written on Adobe Slate.

White House Tech

There are millions of Republican voters out there. They have many similarities and a few differences. Differences will need to be worked out at some point in the future. This article isn't about our differences. It's about how to get what we all want: to get more Republicans elected to lead.

“This article isn’t about our differences. It’s about how to get what we all want: to get more Republicans elected to lead.”

Many believe that tech has kept Republicans out of the White House. Obama and the Democrats dominated campaign tech innovation for several campaign cycles. From 2006 to 2012 Republicans were the absolute worst at campaign tech. Mitt Romney's Orca was the pinnacle of bad GOP tech.

In 2014 things changed. After the 2012 elections the RNC and many other GOP and Conservative groups reevaluated and reinvested heavily in their technical infrastructures. This resulted in massive gains in 2014.

Sidenote: the NRCC has been at the forefront of this innovation and is what I would consider the most publicly visible Republican tech pioneers.

Scott Walker's clever Instagram logo reveal.

Scott Walker's clever Instagram logo reveal.

2016 looks even brighter. Websites are nicer, and Republicans are innovating the crap out of technology at the national level. Everyone should be watching these incredible GOP candidates and taking notes of what they're doing. Their staffs are coming up with some fantastic ideas that can be quickly translated to more local levels as well.

What About Oregon?

The Republican Party in Oregon isn't strong. There is work going on to help rectify that situation. I am optimistic about our future. However, high quality, innovative GOP staffers don't grow on trees and neither do the checks paying their salaries. Eventually, there will need to be investment by many people and groups to help build the Oregon GOP. We can't rest on laurels until then. We need to prove we deserve to be supported. That we can do a lot with a little. In a small way we can both prove the Conservative model of governance and further its reach. It only takes a few steps.

“In a small way we can both prove the conservative model of governance and further its reach.
”

What You Can Do

1. Recognize Tech's Value

Face to face voter contact from the candidate is almost always the most effective way to get a vote. Candidates and organizations should knock doors. No tech replaces that kind of effective campaigning.

That being said tech cannot be ignored. How your website looks, what your social media says, and how you communicate with voters online matters. If you have the opportunity, choosing quality will always benefit you. Democrats choose quality digital outreach every time. When you skimp on yours you provide them a free advantage. When you're not in the position of power that's not something you can afford to do.

If you've ever heard "Voter's don't care about presentation! They just need to hear the cold hard truth/facts!" Then get it our of your head (and if you've ever said that please stop). Voters care a ton about presentation. If you polled them they may not say so, but their actions show otherwise. It's why Republicans call the estate tax the death tax and democrats refer to taxes as assessments, fees, or any other number of things. They connect better and with more voters when presented that way.

2. Learn

Considering the dramatic value of tech in campaigns, you need to not just realize it has value; you need to then learn about how to make it valuable to you. You can actually be you or someone you hire to do it for you. It behooves you to learn as much as you can yourself. That will allow you to extract more value out of social media by being more effective at a lower cost. Since cost tends to be an issue for Oregon Republicans this is especially important for us.

“It’s as simple as Googling “How Do I Facebook?””

It's as simple as Googling "How do I facebook?" Learn at your own pace. Ask others for resources, and don't be afraid to learn from how Democrats approach tech. Many great Republican techies learned by studying the Ds.

3. Experiment

Don't hang out in the status quo. Just because now you have a Website, Facebook, and Twitter doesn't mean your relevant. Instagram is becoming very important and there will always be new ways to reach voters. Experiment with them. Test them out.

That's why you're even reading this in the first place. If you scroll to the bottom you'll see this was created in Adobe Slate. It's an iPad app for telling stories with beautifully formatted text and photos. It could be compelling for simple local candidate websites or a life story with old photos from your candidate for Governor. The possibilities are enormous, but you'll never know what those possibilities are unless you experiment.

New apps and services are coming out all the time. Many of them will disappear but others will stick and become important to voters. If you're there innovating first, many of these innovations will come on your terms instead of your opponents terms. Republican terms instead of Democratic ones. And that's really the most important part of this whole thing. Those who set the terms of the battle have the best shot at winning.

“Those who set the terms of the battle have the best shot at winning.”

'The Note' →

Sometimes the most creative, inspired, productive thing you can do is try to be as lazy as possible while still showing up to do the work.

Shawn is a brilliant writer. He specializes in productivity and finding the motivation to do your best work. If you're looking for some insipiration, this is it.

A Better Review Of The New MacBook

Last week, I stopped in at Best Buy to get a few minutes with the new MacBook. Even after giving my initial thoughts I still wanted to see it in person. I don't want to oversell my few minutes with it. However, even these simple interactions with it were incredibly beneficial in understanding what makes the new MacBook a compelling computer. It's about precision.

The new butterfly key switches, retina display, single USB-C port, and renewed MacBook Air form factor all point to a new kind of sharp precision. One somehow different from previous versions of laptop Macs.

Size

The first thing you notice about the new MacBook is the size. 12" is a strange size for someone from the Mac world. 11", 13", and 15" have been the only options in MacBook screen sizes since Apple dropped the 17" Pro. How is it that one inch change can make a computer so much better. Is 12" some magic number that has been mathematically computed to be the perfect size for a laptop? Most certainly not. Rather, after years of being condition that 13" is the typical laptop size and the 11" of is ultra small portable laptop, 12" is a logical place to go.

The weight is another thing you notice instantly. Lifting the computer from the table happened more quickly then I would expect. The new MacBook is very light. It feels as heavy as an iPad. That's seriously impressive. I consider this to be the first Mac laptop without actual heft. Previous laptops have been portable in spite of their size. The size and weight combination of the new MacBook truly makes it portable. It's small and light enough to be ultraportable, but big and precise enough to do real work.

Keyboard

What should be the primary goal of a laptop keyboard? The shape of a laptop places severe limitations on how comfortable the keys can be. One can't optimize the keys much for comfort without major compromises in other places. Instead of unworkable compromise, Apple's goal for their laptop keyboard is increased precision.

Sometimes I feel like I'm straining to type on my MacBook Pro. The new MacBook doesn't give me that feeling. Instead the keyboard with larger keys and better switches feels sturdier and up to any task. I typed a sentence on the new keyboard and instantly thought "That's it?" I almost expected it to be more work. Instead it felt as if I typed shorter and more to the point. Although in reality the keyboard isn't so much different, it still offers a tactile improvement that I think benefits the computer overall. Returning to my computer, I found the gaps and mushiness of the keys to be annoyingly average and somewhat cumbersome.

Screen

I don't have much to say about the screen. It's a wonderful retina screen. Websites do look excellent. In five years, Apple has made nearly all of their screens retina. There's something about these screens that are very Apple. Retina screens are a form of precision that a practical person would think unnecessary, but those who love well designed things are thankful for.

Speed

I didn't get to stress test the new MacBook. Some apps felt speedy while other normal operations took a while. I have no way of knowing if this was because it's a demo unit or if the new MacBook is underpowered. I suspect some of both. This new MacBook has an old processor. There's no way around it. A lot of reviews cited issues with performance. Not having a fan is great. Not having computer power isn't. It's clear that processor speed is the main thing holding this computer back from being a super laptop. I understand there are technical constraints but they're frustrating.

The Future

The new MacBook is the most precise computer Apple has ever made. It's more portable then the MacBook Air, and it's more powerful than an iPad. Apple has brought some of their great handheld hardware to the Mac. It's a fantastic fit that I expect they'll continue to improve upon.

I didn't walk out of Best Buy with a new MacBook, but I wanted to. I'm typing this review on a less than one year old retina MacBook Pro. It's a better machine overall, but barely. Soon the new MacBook will be faster and then it will be a nearly perfect laptop. Soon is probably less than five years way.