Late 2004 and After: Democrats Create Voter Database for Election Uses

Harold Ickes. [Source: Politico]After the loss of presidential contender John Kerry (D-MA), Democratic media consultant Harold Ickes and a team of media and technology consultants begin building what becomes known as “Catalyst,” a database on some 200 million Americans containing information about their voting intentions, stances on issues, relative income levels, family structures, and the times they could best be contacted via telephone or “cold call” visits. Catalyst, created at a cost of some $15 million, is based on a model called VoterVault that the George W. Bush campaign had used in 2000 and again in 2004. It is a for-profit business and putatively independent of party alliance, though it will be used to great effect by the 2008 presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama (D-IL). It will remain independent because if it is owned by a political party, it is subject to campaign laws. Just as VoterVault was putatively independent but worked exclusively with the Bush campaigns and the Republican Party, Catalyst works exclusively with Democratic campaigns. Catalyst depends entirely on publicly and commercially available voter information, and has no means of user interaction. [The Kernel, 12/19/2011]