The effort by Romney appears to be the first example of a political campaign using such extensive data analysis.
Obviously I haven’t seen this new data-mining system, but from the article (and talking with some conservative friends on the campaign) it sounds like what the Democrats have had for years now. I can pull anybody up and get their score on an index of how liberal they likely are, how likely they are to vote, and what their expected contribution should be. This data is generated via a mix of campaign voter files, c3 and c4 groups plugging in their own data in exchange for access to the system, and purchased consumer information (such as magazine subscriptions, etc.).
