Mobilizing with Mobile Technology
"Mobilizing with Mobile Technology" is the title of the presentation of John A. Phillips at the 15th EAPC Conference "Emotions in Politics and Campaigning" next may in Vienna.
In 1977, John A. Phillips became known as the A-Bomb Kid while attending Princeton University as a junior undergraduate when he designed a nuclear weapon using publicly-available books and papers. Phillips published his story together with a co-author, David Michaelis, as Mushroom: The True Story of the A-Bomb Kid. In 1980 and 1982 he ran for the United States House of Representatives as a Democratic Party candidate in Connecticut's 4th congressional district. The experience he had gained during his campaigns obtaining the voter list from the state and using it for campaign purposes led him and his brother Dean to found Aristotle, Inc. in 1983, a non-partisan technology consulting firm for political campaigns which John Phillips has since led as the CEO. It specializes in enriching voter lists with personal data from other sources (such as income, gun ownership or church attendance) and data-mining, to assist with micro-targeting of specific voter groups; as of 2007, its database contained detailed information about ca. 175 million U.S. voters and it had about 100 employees. Aristotle has served every occupant of the White House since Ronald Reagan, and consults for several top political action committees.
