I read snippets of the first 10 or so posts, then I had enough, and had to put my two cents in.
Pretty much any political campaign, large or small, conservative or liberal candidate, is simply about manipulating numerous voting blocs into thinking that the politician cares about them and therefore will end up doing something for them or fulfilling some need they have.
For some voters it is simply Transactional: "If you vote for me, I will ensure you can still get welfare and will not be forced to go out and get a job and support yourself. I will make sure college students in disadvantaged neighborhoods (read
emocrat) have access to low interest loans and are not held to high standards in college admissions."
For some, it is Inspirational: "Oh man oh man. This guy is awesome!! He's going to change the world!!! I'm gonna vote for him so I can feel I am somehow contributing to the betterment of the human condition, without actually having to make any effort myself!!" (This is much the same as someone who buys a hybrid vehicle, which costs MUCH more in energy resources to produce, feeling better about themselves because they are "helping the environment."
In other words, as they are currently run today, political campaigns are about very smart people taking advantage of greedy people, gullible people, and desperate people.
I understand where you are coming from, the idea of a database that identifies pool players, like one that identifies Democrats, a la Obama's campaign. The difference is that the databases upon which these campaigns run are pre-built, and the members of the database opted in before they ever knew there was any possibility of targeted advertising. I GUARANTEE you Facebook would not be as big if any large percentage first 500 million people to join up saw any advertising whatsoever.
As an IT person and a studier of social technological trends, building a new database targeting pool players is not plausible. Not enough people will not give their information to a database to be shared by numerous billiards vendors, tournament promoters, bar owners, etc. We all get enough spam as it is.
This might work if someone could get with Facebook and use their algorithms to identify pool players and target them with advertising, but there remains the main problem of pool.
Nobody is playing it anymore.
As sad as that is, it's true. For guys it's a lot more fun (and economical) to sit home and play Madden 2014 with your buddies, drink cheap beer and liquor, and have a good time. The only time these guys go out now is to meet women. Businesses recognize that and cater to the "date crowd". Business lease space is getting more expensive, so filling up that space with pool tables is cost prohibitive, as pool tables simply do not earn enough per hour.
The only way pool will make a resurgence is if somehow inflation is slowed, American production skyrockets, and there is money everywhere, and the young people don't have to watch every penny. Good luck with that in today's political climate.
Sorry to be negative, but pool had it's heyday in a time period where T.V. wasn't really even started yet, and there was a not to do to occupy the time. team sports were not really successful yet, and the American Male had little choice of where to go to hang out and be a man with his buddies.
The combination of team sports, video games, and social interaction through both the internet and personal electronics (instead of live and in-person) has effectively killed pool in America. It still survives in Asian countries where economic forces haven't quite created an electronics-swamped middle class yet...
Again, sorry to be a Debbie Downer. Pool is just not cool enough to Americans to do more than hang on by its fingernails.
The only reason politicians can reach millions of people and communicate their message with these databases you speak of, is that these databases can be used to tell 100 different lies, to a million different groups.
You would think the world would be more transparent because of the internet, but it allows politicians to say a million different and conflicting things to a million groups, and to be able to get away with it because the advertising is so targeted that you are only saying "Thing A" to a very specific group of people that are already predisposed to believe "Thing A" already.
Russ
