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Republicans using tailor-made tech on campaign trail

KIRKWOOD, Mo. – If you follow Rick Stream on the campaign trail as he makes his bid for the 15th district state senate seat, you will notice that he is constantly checking his cell phone. When he has his face pointed down towards his screen, he is not looking at Facebook notifications or sending off texts. Instead, he has an application open that he hopes will propel him back into office.

That application should be familiar to almost any House Republican – Pebble.

Pebble was created in 2013 as the brainchild of multiple Republicans looking for a better software solution for campaigning after Missouri was largely left by the wayside. With Missouri’s status as a battleground state diminished after the early 00s, the Republican National Convention stopped funnelling as many resources into the state as it previously had.

Jonathan Ratliff (right) pictured with Karl Rove.

Jonathan Ratliff, the former political director of the House Republican Campaign Committee, says that the HRCC took it upon themselves to develop software with the sole intention of keeping the House solidly in Republican hands. He and others examined other pieces of software, took what worked well and discarded what did not to make Pebble. Pebble is available at no cost to all House Republican candidates, and other Republican office seekers across the state can also use Pebble on a subscription fee basis.

In 2014, Ratliff says the technology worked wonderfully. He credits it with multiple Republican wins, including Rep. Chuck Bayse’s, R-Rocheport, narrow victory over Democrat John Wright.

“Using a system like we have allowed us to target our mail better, knock on the right doors,” he said.

The system will continue to evolve. They have continued adding new features since 2014, and Ratliff believes 2016 will prove even better for the Republican field, in part because of this technology.

“We’re always trying to add new things… it never stops,” Ratliff says. “Development on any software like this, if you stop developing, you cease to exist.”

Back on the trail, Stream dutifully checks the phone, puts it back into his pocket and begins walking down a cul-de-sac near Twin Oaks and Manchester in West County. He knocks on each door. If no one responds, he writes a short message onto a campaign brochure and moves on to the next location. If someone comes to the door, he has a brief conversation with them, letting them know who he is and what he stands for before asking for their support. Most people greet him warmly, even if it is not apparent if they will necessarily vote for him.

Former Rep. Rick Stream uses Pebble to see where to campaign Friday, April 29.
Former Rep. Rick Stream uses Pebble to see where to campaign Friday, April 29.

“They remember I ran two years ago, and they remember me favorably because of that,” Stream says. “I have good name ID, and I think I have a good message with leadership and the right common sense conservative type of message. I think that’s what people in St. Louis County and this district are looking for.”

Two years ago, Stream lost his race for St. Louis County Executive to Steve Stenger by fewer than 2,000 votes. Now fighting in a primary against currently serving Rep. Andrew Koenig, the former house budget chair will need every advantage he can get. He sees technology as a way to get a leg up.

“It’s a big help because in the past when we did door to door, we literally had to use paper and pen and we marked things down,” Stream says. “This way, with technology in the phones, we can put the data right on the phones and we don’t have to transcribe to some other list.”

Pebble was created in 2013 as campaign management software catered towards conservative candidates to win elections. The application itself has a litany of features. The dashboard displays all of the statistics of any given campaign across the state, from demographics to financial status and even a countdown that steadily ticks away the seconds until the election. The mail center allows a campaign to send out mass emails, and a call center does the same for robocalls and survey calls.

However, its most compelling feature is the map of a subdivision down to the house adorned with a bunch of blue, yellow and green dots.

Each dot represents a household. Stream, or any other candidate, can select a dot and pull up the address of the house and use it to see which registered voters live in that home. From there, Stream can see whether they voted in a Republican or Democratic primary in the past, how likely they are to cast a ballot, and how they are registered, along with basic demographic information like gender, race, and age.

Stream filters the app to only bring up registered Republicans. The blue dots are houses he has yet to visit, the yellow represent people who were not home but where he left literature, and the greens are where he has had conversations with people and introduced himself in person. Stream notes that this makes it much more efficient than previous door-to-door methods. He knows which houses to hit, does not repeat areas, and knows where he will likely have more success than not.

Ratliff says that is by design. The old method of acquiring door-to-door routes involved obtaining mail carrier routes to determine the most efficient path to hit each door in a given neighborhood or area. When he ran for county executive in 2014, Stream did not even bother going door-to-door simply because the size of the county was too daunting for conventional efforts to be of any use. Now, the map simply shows which houses to target instead of how best to hit all of the houses.

However, Pebble also has its negatives, though Stream notes they are few and far between. For the first time since obtaining the app, it has had a server crash, effectively rendering the map unusable.

Still, Stream is comfortable reverting back to tradition. The Navy veteran points out that he knocks on any door whose owner is flying the American flag or even if they just have a flag holder. He talks with a woman named Amy Fix about their worries that Donald Trump might become the Republican nominee. He hits every door in the subdivision, getting his word out however he can. Technology is all well and good, but he still wants to speak with these people in person.

“As far as me getting my message out… getting the message out is me actually saying the message,” Stream says.