President Barack Obama's State of the Union address is social media red meat. Quotes from the speech, commentary on it, and hot takes of every shape and size were everywhere on Facebook and Twitter.

On the Internet, the proximate incentives of voter contact work in favor of never giving up on a prospect. Marginal costs for additional messages are minuscule. Lack of response, a possible signal of voter rejection, can be readily and optimistically misinterpreted as inattentiveness - because we do indeed forget emails and overlook ads.

The post-mortems of the 2014 election cycle are well underway. At this point, we can safely declare that the use of data mining, social media and email are now standard campaign methods. The use of mobile devices to get out the vote is also an acknowledged advancement that both parties seem to have used successfully - at least to some extent in 2014.