6 ms·

Mark Zuckerberg Hired Obama and Bush Campaign Managers

55 points by rosstex 10y ago

orionblastar 10y ago
I think he plans to run for office in 2020.
- afinlayson 10y ago
  I suspect he'll get advice telling him to "put feelers out" in 2020 like Trump did in 2000. It maybe 8-12 years before he can get the blue collar vote.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Trump didn't put feelers out in 2000, he began campaigning for the Reform Party nomination (a number of candidates were attracted, because they had secured federal matching funds based on their 1996 performance) before withdrawing (citing, at the time, a desire not to be associated with the other Reform Party candidates, particularly David Duke, who in 2016 he would claim to never have heard of before.)
- hubert123 10y ago
  I think he is far too unlikeable for this to work, on top of being up against Trump. But sure, it would be very interesting for him to try.
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    Trump was far too unlikeable also, but look what happened. There is no rule book anymore.
    - marchenko 10y ago
      Trump was unlikeable to a lot of people, but was up against an opponent with a long history of being completely unacceptable to a lot of people.Trump also picked messages that resonated with a core group of enthusiastic supporters, ginned up constant free press coverage, and is quite charismatic. The rule book has not really changed, except that the power of traditional media gatekeepers has diminished. I cannot imagine who would be excited by Zuckerberg.
      - erelde 10y ago
        I wouldn't be excited by Zuckerberg, nor do I want him to have any political office. But at least I'd know that political office doesn't have an idiot sitting in it. If that's any consolation.
        Inconel 10y ago
        Sadly, I don't really think that intelligence is necessarily a hedge against bad governance or poor ethics. I certainly dislike the every man populist anti-intellectualism I see in US politics, particularly on the Republican side, but there have been plenty of politicians with very impressive academic resumes who I've been equally disappointed in.
        erelde 10y ago
        What I meant by "If that's any consolation" was: At least if I know someone (imo) intelligent is in charge, even if they do (imo) bad things, I can tell myself that they do it for a reason, have thought about it and came to a different conclusion than me, which is "fine", I can deal with that. Maybe even discuss with them about it. On the other hand... Stupid doesn't think, has no reasoning behind its action and can't be reasoned with.
        marchenko 10y ago
        In a democracy, a stupid self-interested politician is often a better choice than an intelligent ideologue. To the extent that I've been able to discern any personality at all from Zuckerberg, his positions appear to be negative verging on malevolent (e.g. privacy).
    - tmuir 10y ago
      Trump had several things going for him: 1. He is independently wealthy, and has no public office experience whatsoever. Thus, the normal pressures that cause every other candidate to end their campaign when sufficient controversy arises had no effect on Trump. He had no political career or general reputation to ruin, and he has fuck you money. 2. Unlike Trump, countless other presidential candidates have ended their campaigns in controversy. Thus, there was a mountain of precedence to inform the media that the each week's controversy would be the one that ended his campaign. The result was that every media organization that reported on these events racked up a 13 month streak of being wrong. Its trivial to point this out as a witch hunt after enough time, and at the same time, conflate them with fake news. 3. No matter where you come down on his tactics, its fairly noncontroversial to say that Trump is a master of negotiation. As evidenced by his continually evolving policy prescriptions, he is adept at reading his audience (supporters and detractors), and putting forward messaging that both pleases his supporters, and displeases his detractors. This has multiple positive feedback effects because the pleased take pleasure in witnessing the displeasure of the displeased. The continued pleasure of the pleased is a source of continued displeasure for the displeased as well. 4. Trump makes a lot of obvious generalizations about the world at large: The media sensationalizes, terrorism is problematic, illegal immigration creates a glut of low wage workers, America was a great nation in the past, lobbyists have largely captured congress, the middle class is shrinking, etc. It's trivially simple to control for the variable of Trump, and observe that these phenomena all persist, and have for years. However, there is a psychological element to the consistency of being "right". If you are directly affected by a shrinking middle class, and have to compete with the glut of low wage workers, and see terrorism as a spontaneous event driven completely by religion, and see our government as a corrupt body that breaks everything it touches, you are highly predisposed to attribute unique wisdom to someone who is merely pointing out conventional wisdom. If you already view someone as an expert on subjects of interest to you, you are additionally predisposed to believe in their abilities to fix all of these ailments, without qualification, previous experience, or even the agreement of a single true expert in relevant fields.
      - makomk 10y ago
        Regarding 2, the other advantage Trump had was that some of the big claims about him were plain and simply untrue. For example, the Slate story about his supposed secret communications channel with Russia - it was an outsourced bulk email provider for his hotels, every single piece of evidence was exactly what you'd expect from such a server, and a number of major news outlets had declined to run the story for that reason. But it just took one publication willing to ignore the issues and run it for the story to spread like wildfire on social media, just like fake news, even being repeated by Hillary Clinton's Twitter account which received a huge number of retweets for it. One of her staff members even attacked the FBI for not investigating it, and once the NYT revealed they had investigated and concluded it was a junk email server, her supporters took this as proof the FBI were conspiring with Trump. The comments section on any vaguely related article were filled with people insisting on this right up until the election. Think about that - we had a situation where people believed the FBI was conspiring with Russia and a presidential candidate because the FBI refused to see junk emails as proof of secret communications between the two. We're seeing something similar with the latest Trump story, which is also based on a document that's been doing the rounds in media circles for months but was too dubious to report[1], and is being widely and uncritically spread on social media by people who often openly don't care whether what they're claiming is true or not. [1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-t...
- qznc 10y ago
  Since Trump could do it, there are probably a bunch of celebrities who also believe they can do it. We might see a very illustrious primary in 2019. Kanye West has bigger chances than Zuckerberg in my opinion.
nodesocket 10y ago
I immediately thought to myself, Mark is not old enough, you have to be 35. Then I looked it up and to my surprise he is 32. I always thought he was in his late twenties.
- chatmasta 10y ago
  It definitely seems like a Zuckerberg thing to do, to run at the earliest possible age.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Tempus fugit. Zuckerberg has been around for quite a while. Which again triggers my early-middle-age crisis :(.
woodruffw 10y ago
I wonder if Zuckerberg is planning to capitalize on the fractured party landscape. 2020 would be a prime year for a new ticket. As far as I can tell, his politics don't fit cleanly into any of the four (broad) ideological groups we see today (those being far and center conservatives and liberals).
- aaron-lebo 10y ago
  He doesn't have that clout. He strikes me as a big money, big government guy, which isn't that different from Bush or Obama. They also essentially all come from that Ivy League background so they have some similar worldviews at least. What do you see which suggests he is different? What might he be running for? Representative seems too low and too political for a guy of his stature. Senate? I think he's overplaying his hand if he thinks at 35 he could run for any office higher than that and win with no prior experience and not a ton of charisma.
  - aaronbrethorst 10y ago
    I don't think he's running. But, were he to, he'd go for Governor with an eye on the White House in 2024 or 2028, depending on who wins the White House in 2020. The primary would be tough, and I don't think Zuckerberg would fare any better than Fiorina or Whitman did in their Senate and Gubernatorial runs. The big question for me at this moment is whether Xavier Becerra runs for Governor in 2018. My money is on him winning the Governorship if he does. I assume Becerra is angling for the White House, and he needs a bigger podium than AG to make a run for it.
  - woodruffw 10y ago
    I think you're absolutely right about clout. He doesn't have the presence or charisma for senatorship or above. I have doubts about his success - what I don't doubt is his aspirations. He's big money and big government, but so is everybody from those four ideological groups (with the exception of the libertarian and anarchistic contingents). Parties aren't always formed from a unique political agenda or worldview - they're just as often a means to cut through existing party bureaucracy and raise the heat on the competition in tight races.
vanrysss 10y ago
The current election showed us that a lot of people just gobble up what they're fed on Facebook. Who better to take advantage of that than the owner?
kome 10y ago
The big brother candidate.
vinhboy 10y ago
I have a feeling a lot of people here are going to scoff at this news, because they think politics should be left to someone "better". We live in a country where people like Mitch McConnell, Jason Chaffetz, Jim Inhofe, and Trump are political leaders. At this point, anything is better. I hope more people in our community will volunteer themselves to the work. Heck, if I didn't have to worry about paying my mortgage, I would. I can't be any worse than the integrity-less lizards running the show now.
- aaron-lebo 10y ago
  Interesting list of only Republicans you have there. They're not heartless monsters. They have constituencies that they serve as well as pander to. They care about those people. They just have a different worldview than you. I'm not a fan of theirs any more than I am of Zuckerberg and his propensity to buy up and lockdown whatever he can control. He's shown time and time again that little people (whether users or devs) don't really matter. Why would he be a different politician? Those politicians may be flawed, but there is an advantage in having competing centers of power.
  - vinhboy 10y ago
    I had DEM names on there, but I deleted them because I didn't want to fall into the trap of false equivalencies. > They have constituencies that they serve as well as pander to Pandering is ok. My district has a lot of farms, so my representative panders a lot to the farmers. I don't mind that. It doesn't upset me. It upsets me when people like Mitch McConnell willingly undermine our democracy by trying to hide information from voters. It upsets me when people like Chaffetz waste our money on partisan witch hunts... (You are free to list the sins of DEM candidates if you want. It would only further strengthen my point.) These actions are beyond pandering. These people are not trying to serve their constituents. They are trying to serve themselves and amass power for their party. > Those politicians may be flawed If they are flawed, and Zuckerberg is flawed (by your reasoning), why choose one over the other? Why not give him a chance if you think what we have now is already flawed.
    - deleted 10y ago
johnnydoe9 10y ago
People started predicting this as soon as his comments about atheism became news, now the tour and this. Okay.
koololdkool 10y ago
Holy shit. He could do it. He will be 35 by 2020, so he really could be the next president. I'd vote for him a heartbeat. He's a young Bill Gates. He would do an amazing job if he could rally the young and make internet voting a reality so people actually participated in government. Yes, yes, he would scare people about controlling the vote but then he would employ cryptography experts that we would all agree have created a verifiable system...He's technical and looks up to technical people, he would listen to all of them and create unprecedented transparency. As much as I'm not a fan personally I actually think something like Facebook could fix our democracy. If...if..it was executed in a totally public and transparent way and was a genuine revolution of the people ala Bernie. We could have an American Social Network that included voting...it may be somewhat expensive but everything could be audited 100 different ways in public...public blockchains as auditing mechanism. Reserve your username today! https://american.gov/join https://american.gov/join
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
HugoDaniel 10y ago
lets hope he uses stronger passwords than "dadada" by the time he runs for prez [0]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/06/06/mark-zuckerbergs-password-was-dadada-what-hope-do-the-rest-of-us/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/06/06/mark-zucker...
qwrusz 10y ago
Are we sure this is for Zuckerberg himself? The visit 50 states makes me think yes, but still I always thought Sheryl Sandberg would make the better politician.
- night815 10y ago
  What if it's for everyone instead of just one person. Perhaps Facebook wants to build a better platform for all elected officials as a way to combat the fake news outbreak.

55 points by rosstex 10y ago

orionblastar 10y ago

I think he plans to run for office in 2020.

afinlayson 10y ago
I suspect he'll get advice telling him to "put feelers out" in 2020 like Trump did in 2000. It maybe 8-12 years before he can get the blue collar vote.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  Trump didn't put feelers out in 2000, he began campaigning for the Reform Party nomination (a number of candidates were attracted, because they had secured federal matching funds based on their 1996 performance) before withdrawing (citing, at the time, a desire not to be associated with the other Reform Party candidates, particularly David Duke, who in 2016 he would claim to never have heard of before.)
hubert123 10y ago
I think he is far too unlikeable for this to work, on top of being up against Trump. But sure, it would be very interesting for him to try.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  Trump was far too unlikeable also, but look what happened. There is no rule book anymore.
  - marchenko 10y ago
    Trump was unlikeable to a lot of people, but was up against an opponent with a long history of being completely unacceptable to a lot of people.Trump also picked messages that resonated with a core group of enthusiastic supporters, ginned up constant free press coverage, and is quite charismatic. The rule book has not really changed, except that the power of traditional media gatekeepers has diminished. I cannot imagine who would be excited by Zuckerberg.
    - erelde 10y ago
      I wouldn't be excited by Zuckerberg, nor do I want him to have any political office. But at least I'd know that political office doesn't have an idiot sitting in it. If that's any consolation.
      - Inconel 10y ago
        Sadly, I don't really think that intelligence is necessarily a hedge against bad governance or poor ethics. I certainly dislike the every man populist anti-intellectualism I see in US politics, particularly on the Republican side, but there have been plenty of politicians with very impressive academic resumes who I've been equally disappointed in.
        erelde 10y ago
        What I meant by "If that's any consolation" was: At least if I know someone (imo) intelligent is in charge, even if they do (imo) bad things, I can tell myself that they do it for a reason, have thought about it and came to a different conclusion than me, which is "fine", I can deal with that. Maybe even discuss with them about it. On the other hand... Stupid doesn't think, has no reasoning behind its action and can't be reasoned with.
        marchenko 10y ago
        In a democracy, a stupid self-interested politician is often a better choice than an intelligent ideologue. To the extent that I've been able to discern any personality at all from Zuckerberg, his positions appear to be negative verging on malevolent (e.g. privacy).
  - tmuir 10y ago
    Trump had several things going for him: 1. He is independently wealthy, and has no public office experience whatsoever. Thus, the normal pressures that cause every other candidate to end their campaign when sufficient controversy arises had no effect on Trump. He had no political career or general reputation to ruin, and he has fuck you money. 2. Unlike Trump, countless other presidential candidates have ended their campaigns in controversy. Thus, there was a mountain of precedence to inform the media that the each week's controversy would be the one that ended his campaign. The result was that every media organization that reported on these events racked up a 13 month streak of being wrong. Its trivial to point this out as a witch hunt after enough time, and at the same time, conflate them with fake news. 3. No matter where you come down on his tactics, its fairly noncontroversial to say that Trump is a master of negotiation. As evidenced by his continually evolving policy prescriptions, he is adept at reading his audience (supporters and detractors), and putting forward messaging that both pleases his supporters, and displeases his detractors. This has multiple positive feedback effects because the pleased take pleasure in witnessing the displeasure of the displeased. The continued pleasure of the pleased is a source of continued displeasure for the displeased as well. 4. Trump makes a lot of obvious generalizations about the world at large: The media sensationalizes, terrorism is problematic, illegal immigration creates a glut of low wage workers, America was a great nation in the past, lobbyists have largely captured congress, the middle class is shrinking, etc. It's trivially simple to control for the variable of Trump, and observe that these phenomena all persist, and have for years. However, there is a psychological element to the consistency of being "right". If you are directly affected by a shrinking middle class, and have to compete with the glut of low wage workers, and see terrorism as a spontaneous event driven completely by religion, and see our government as a corrupt body that breaks everything it touches, you are highly predisposed to attribute unique wisdom to someone who is merely pointing out conventional wisdom. If you already view someone as an expert on subjects of interest to you, you are additionally predisposed to believe in their abilities to fix all of these ailments, without qualification, previous experience, or even the agreement of a single true expert in relevant fields.
    - makomk 10y ago
      Regarding 2, the other advantage Trump had was that some of the big claims about him were plain and simply untrue. For example, the Slate story about his supposed secret communications channel with Russia - it was an outsourced bulk email provider for his hotels, every single piece of evidence was exactly what you'd expect from such a server, and a number of major news outlets had declined to run the story for that reason. But it just took one publication willing to ignore the issues and run it for the story to spread like wildfire on social media, just like fake news, even being repeated by Hillary Clinton's Twitter account which received a huge number of retweets for it. One of her staff members even attacked the FBI for not investigating it, and once the NYT revealed they had investigated and concluded it was a junk email server, her supporters took this as proof the FBI were conspiring with Trump. The comments section on any vaguely related article were filled with people insisting on this right up until the election. Think about that - we had a situation where people believed the FBI was conspiring with Russia and a presidential candidate because the FBI refused to see junk emails as proof of secret communications between the two. We're seeing something similar with the latest Trump story, which is also based on a document that's been doing the rounds in media circles for months but was too dubious to report[1], and is being widely and uncritically spread on social media by people who often openly don't care whether what they're claiming is true or not. [1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-t...
qznc 10y ago
Since Trump could do it, there are probably a bunch of celebrities who also believe they can do it. We might see a very illustrious primary in 2019. Kanye West has bigger chances than Zuckerberg in my opinion.

nodesocket 10y ago

I immediately thought to myself, Mark is not old enough, you have to be 35. Then I looked it up and to my surprise he is 32. I always thought he was in his late twenties.

chatmasta 10y ago
It definitely seems like a Zuckerberg thing to do, to run at the earliest possible age.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
TeMPOraL 10y ago
Tempus fugit. Zuckerberg has been around for quite a while. Which again triggers my early-middle-age crisis :(.

woodruffw 10y ago

I wonder if Zuckerberg is planning to capitalize on the fractured party landscape. 2020 would be a prime year for a new ticket. As far as I can tell, his politics don't fit cleanly into any of the four (broad) ideological groups we see today (those being far and center conservatives and liberals).

aaron-lebo 10y ago
He doesn't have that clout. He strikes me as a big money, big government guy, which isn't that different from Bush or Obama. They also essentially all come from that Ivy League background so they have some similar worldviews at least. What do you see which suggests he is different? What might he be running for? Representative seems too low and too political for a guy of his stature. Senate? I think he's overplaying his hand if he thinks at 35 he could run for any office higher than that and win with no prior experience and not a ton of charisma.
- aaronbrethorst 10y ago
  I don't think he's running. But, were he to, he'd go for Governor with an eye on the White House in 2024 or 2028, depending on who wins the White House in 2020. The primary would be tough, and I don't think Zuckerberg would fare any better than Fiorina or Whitman did in their Senate and Gubernatorial runs. The big question for me at this moment is whether Xavier Becerra runs for Governor in 2018. My money is on him winning the Governorship if he does. I assume Becerra is angling for the White House, and he needs a bigger podium than AG to make a run for it.
- woodruffw 10y ago
  I think you're absolutely right about clout. He doesn't have the presence or charisma for senatorship or above. I have doubts about his success - what I don't doubt is his aspirations. He's big money and big government, but so is everybody from those four ideological groups (with the exception of the libertarian and anarchistic contingents). Parties aren't always formed from a unique political agenda or worldview - they're just as often a means to cut through existing party bureaucracy and raise the heat on the competition in tight races.

vanrysss 10y ago

The current election showed us that a lot of people just gobble up what they're fed on Facebook. Who better to take advantage of that than the owner?

kome 10y ago

The big brother candidate.

vinhboy 10y ago

I have a feeling a lot of people here are going to scoff at this news, because they think politics should be left to someone "better". We live in a country where people like Mitch McConnell, Jason Chaffetz, Jim Inhofe, and Trump are political leaders. At this point, anything is better. I hope more people in our community will volunteer themselves to the work. Heck, if I didn't have to worry about paying my mortgage, I would. I can't be any worse than the integrity-less lizards running the show now.

aaron-lebo 10y ago
Interesting list of only Republicans you have there. They're not heartless monsters. They have constituencies that they serve as well as pander to. They care about those people. They just have a different worldview than you. I'm not a fan of theirs any more than I am of Zuckerberg and his propensity to buy up and lockdown whatever he can control. He's shown time and time again that little people (whether users or devs) don't really matter. Why would he be a different politician? Those politicians may be flawed, but there is an advantage in having competing centers of power.
- vinhboy 10y ago
  I had DEM names on there, but I deleted them because I didn't want to fall into the trap of false equivalencies. > They have constituencies that they serve as well as pander to Pandering is ok. My district has a lot of farms, so my representative panders a lot to the farmers. I don't mind that. It doesn't upset me. It upsets me when people like Mitch McConnell willingly undermine our democracy by trying to hide information from voters. It upsets me when people like Chaffetz waste our money on partisan witch hunts... (You are free to list the sins of DEM candidates if you want. It would only further strengthen my point.) These actions are beyond pandering. These people are not trying to serve their constituents. They are trying to serve themselves and amass power for their party. > Those politicians may be flawed If they are flawed, and Zuckerberg is flawed (by your reasoning), why choose one over the other? Why not give him a chance if you think what we have now is already flawed.
  - deleted 10y ago

johnnydoe9 10y ago

People started predicting this as soon as his comments about atheism became news, now the tour and this. Okay.

koololdkool 10y ago

Holy shit. He could do it. He will be 35 by 2020, so he really could be the next president. I'd vote for him a heartbeat. He's a young Bill Gates. He would do an amazing job if he could rally the young and make internet voting a reality so people actually participated in government. Yes, yes, he would scare people about controlling the vote but then he would employ cryptography experts that we would all agree have created a verifiable system...He's technical and looks up to technical people, he would listen to all of them and create unprecedented transparency. As much as I'm not a fan personally I actually think something like Facebook could fix our democracy. If...if..it was executed in a totally public and transparent way and was a genuine revolution of the people ala Bernie. We could have an American Social Network that included voting...it may be somewhat expensive but everything could be audited 100 different ways in public...public blockchains as auditing mechanism. Reserve your username today! https://american.gov/join https://american.gov/join

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

HugoDaniel 10y ago

lets hope he uses stronger passwords than "dadada" by the time he runs for prez [0]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/06/06/mark-zuckerbergs-password-was-dadada-what-hope-do-the-rest-of-us/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/06/06/mark-zucker...

qwrusz 10y ago

Are we sure this is for Zuckerberg himself? The visit 50 states makes me think yes, but still I always thought Sheryl Sandberg would make the better politician.

night815 10y ago
What if it's for everyone instead of just one person. Perhaps Facebook wants to build a better platform for all elected officials as a way to combat the fake news outbreak.