The political bull's-eye: persuading the right people with microtargeting.(FEATURE)

When you talk with the staff of TargetPoint Consulting, you can forget you're discussing politics. There's little discussion of polls, personalities or congressional scandals. The buzzwords here are "census blocks," "data overlays" and "SPSS software right out of the box." But this is nuts-and-bolts politics, and an increasing number of campaigns are hearing these terms as they use something called microtargeting to win elections.

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TargetPoint, in Alexandria, Va., is a leading Republican firm that does