Description: Mitt Romney’s success in raising hundreds of millions of dollars in the costliest presidential race ever can be traced in part to a secretive data-mining project that sifts through Americans’ personal information — including their purchasing history and church attendance — to identify new and likely, wealthy donors,

Source: www.clarionledger.com

Date: Aug 24, 2012

For the data-mining project, the Republican candidate has quietly employed since at least June a little-known but successful analytics firm that previously performed marketing work for a colleague tied to Bain & Co., the management-consulting firm that Romney once led.

The project shows that the same strategies corporations use to influence the way we shop and think are now being used to influence presidential elections. The same personal information that we give away, often unwittingly when we swipe our credit cards or log into Facebook, is now being collected by the people who might one day occupy the White House.

Questions for discussion:

1. Describe the benefits of the data-mining project that Mitt Romney is employing in the 2012 election.

2.  The effort by Romney appears to be the first example of a political campaign using such extensive data analysis; does this give him a sustainable competitive advantage?  Explain Why or                 Why not?