Brief thought exercise: has modern politics mostly become about Big Data and targeting?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZOfnFCMHTM&w=620&h=315]

Famous narrative of Obama winning in 2008 (and again in 2012) was that the Democratic machine had better data, analysis, and targeting methods. This has been discussed for years. The Republicans have a good deal of problems at the national level right now, not the least of which is their E…