It's the database, stupid.

From CIO.com, a website for information technology executives, comes a great piece on the database efforts of the two national parties. The whole question of major voter file databases is a topic we'll come back to again and again here at P&T.

As CIO.com points out, the GOP got their technological act together "a full six years before the Democrats. ... like other technology-related campaign innovations that the party pioneered, such as telemarketing and direct mail in the 1980s." Frankly, this is the whole reason that those of us here at Mandate Media got into this game - to keep the right-wingers from building a technological edge in web strategy and organizing.

Anyway, there's hope for the national Democrats. They've invested several million bucks in a Democrat's DataMart that hopes to even the scales. Hmmm... CIO.com reports, "One shortcoming of the Democratic effort so far is the lack of online tools (such as the Republicans have) that allow party operatives in every state to more easily segment voter data."

As Will Rogers used to say, "I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat." Usually, our rough-and-tumble disorganization and diversity of activists is a strength for our party. When it comes to database technology, though, perhaps the GOPers' corporate command-and-control model is more efficient and effective.