Obama on gay marriage

OK, I admit this isn't about numbers in the sense I usually use. But it is about a politician making a brave and important statement (some people are suggesting that it's in defiance of numbers, those in Tuesday's vote in North Carolina). Here's President Obama speaking out in support of gay marriage:

Any thoughts? Let me know in the comments.

Text analytics and campaigns

Here's a link to an interesting article by Sasha Issenberg of Slate, describing how the Obama campaign might be data-mining the statements provided by readers of the campaign website. (The Slate story is refers to the campaign's Pennsylvania page, but if you google "share your story" and obama there are lots of opportunities to share.) Slate speculates, based on the analytic expertise of the campaign's "chief scientist" Rayid Ghani, that the campaign will be analyzing statements to develop more nuanced understanding of the positions of voters on various issues. This suggests that voters will be targeted for mailings in ever more tightly segmented interest groups, and should make for an interesting campaign . . . just remember, when you provide information, you may be hearing from the campaign again.