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Buttigieg strategist Michael Halle is married to Tara McGowan, founder of the failed Iowa caucus App company. His brother is Buttigieg’s Iowa communications director. The mother of the Product Manager for the failed Iowa App is originally from Buttigieg’s home state of Indiana. Recall that it was Buttigieg’s team that complained about the Iowa polling; Buttigieg also declared himself the winner early on, with no evidence. Is Silicon Valley’s shadowy “Mind the Gap” behind this flop-op? Or is it simply the case of the Product Manager being an incompetent child of a large Democratic donor-fundraiser?

Being a successful political strategist is big money, meaning that, as a married couple, both Halle and McGowan would be big winners if Buttigieg wins. Iowa caucus success leading to the Democratic nomination may be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The poll that Buttigieg’s campaign complained about and had cancelled could have impacted the caucus. We may never know what it said – unless there is a leak.

Currently Buttigieg is reported as in the lead in Iowa: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/feb/04/democratic-race-iowa-caucus-shambles-as-results-are-delayed-live-coverage “Influential ‘gold standard’ of polls pulled ahead of caucuses on Monday after reported complaint from Buttigieg campaign” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/02/release-of-major-iowa-poll-scrapped-after-pete-buttigiegs-name-left-off-survey

“Pete Buttigieg declares victory in the Iowa caucuses with zero percent of the vote in” Sonam Sheth Feb 4, 2020, 2:33 AM, Business Insider:https://archive.li/rFRXd

Buttigieg strategist Michael Halle is married to Tara McGowan founder of the failed Iowa App company. Michael Halle’s brother, Ben, was Buttigieg’s communications director in Iowa. The Product Manager of the Iowa App, who should have been responsible for training, is Ahna Rao. Her mother, Amy Rao, born Remley, is a big Democratic donor-fund raiser in Silicon Valley and is originally from Buttigieg’s home state of Indiana. Amy Rao is also reportedly a member of the shadowy Silicon Valley “Mind the Gap” group.

The app should have cost around $20,000 and taken two people and a few weeks to develop. There are products, which could do the job, available for free online. The apparent failure appears to have been in failure to do training or failure to train adequately.

As product manager, Ahna Rao should have been responsible for training. Although Ahna Rao probably owes her job to her mother’s donations and fund-raising, she did have some experience on the Hillary campaign. Furthermore, she does have a degree that may (or may not) make her qualified for the position.

According to the New York Times: “Shadow Inc. was launched by ACRONYM, a nonprofit corporation founded in 2017 by Tara McGowan, a political strategist… McGowan, 34, is married to Michael Halle, a senior strategist for Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, which records show has also paid Shadow Inc. $42,500 for software.” (New York Times, 4 Feb. 2020 https://archive.li/drUrC )

It’s unclear whether Americans will accept either a gay man (Buttigieg) or an old SWP-Marxist-Leninist (Sanders), who is also Jewish, for President. (The old here doesn’t refer to Sanders biological age). It is unclear what sorts of scandals could emerge related to Buttigieg and McKinsey, or the Iowa Caucus. It is clear, however, that Republicans will have a field day with Sanders, especially considering his Honeymoon in the Soviet Union. Mike Bloomberg may well be more viable as a Presidential candidate than these two.

Ahna Rao’s mother, Amy, is listed as a “backer” of this “shadowy” group. Is it an accident that Ahna Rao is head of a product that is called Shadow, Inc? “Inside the secretive Silicon Valley group that has funneled over $20 million to Democrats: There’s a reason you haven’t heard of Mind the Gap: Its “raison d’être is stealth.” By Theodore Jan 6, 2020, 2:00pm EST, VOX-Recode https://archive.li/nhcVv Excerpt: “The group operates in a cone of secrecy,… “The raison d’être is stealth,” one person with ties to the organization told Recode. A core strategy of Mind the Gap has been to hide which candidates and groups it is backing until it’s too late, so to speak…” https://archive.li/nhcVv

“McGowan is married to Michael Halle, a political consultant who has worked as a lead organizer in Iowa for Hillary Clinton and as a senior strategist for Pete Buttigieg. McGowan’s brother-in-law, Ben Halle, was Buttigieg’s Communications Director in Iowa during the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries“.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_McGowan
Tara McGowan tweet “Meet the Shadow Team” https://archive.li/HJR8z
Buttigieg strategist Michael Halle: https://archive.li/k3wVd
Tara E. McGowan – Michael M. Halle marriage https://archive.li/bUqph
https://web.archive.org/web/20190921140218/https://www.anotheracronym.org/introducing-shadow
Acronym-Shadow https://archive.li/RHvUq
Shadow and acronym https://archive.li/uIQEd
https://archive.li/https://highergroundlabs.com/companies/groundbase/

About Ahna Rao: https://archive.li/Nagjf

“Amy Rao
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Integrated Archive Systems
* Amy has contributed $100,000 to Hillary Victory Fund in 2015 and has given $50,000 to Hillary Victory Fund in 2016
* Amy is contributing $50,000 to the Hillary Victory Fund for this dinner
* Amy’s daughter Ahna works on the campaign’s tech team”
https://wikileaks. org/podesta-emails/fileid/36073/9948 (Link intentionally broken. Link to wikileaks at your own risk).

Amy Rao as a Hillary Bundler: https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/bundlers
Amy Rao as a top donor in 2018: https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/topindivs.php?view=hi

Amy Rao in 2019: “Barack Obama tells Silicon Valley’s leading donors to “chill out” over differences between candidates: “I don’t care” if it’s not “your perfect candidate.” By Theodore Schleifer, Updated Nov 21, 2019, 8:09pm EST Recode-VOX https://archive.li/eI4uL

“Abolish the Iowa Caucus: A great nation deserves better than Monday night’s comprehensive omnishambles, By LIBBY WATSON February 4, 2020, The New Republic: https://archive.li/Yzk8N

“Caucus app blamed for Iowa vote count chaos was created by tech firm Shadow, Inc.” The Daily Mail, 3-4 Feb 2020: Shadow CEO Gerard Niemira, product manager Ahna Rao, COO James Hickey https://archive.li/zSdJZ

Update note: App reportedly was not cleared by Homeland Security: https://jonhendricksjr.me/2020/02/04/shadow-inc-the-mysterious-clinton-linked-company-counting-iowas-caucus-votes/

About Ahna’s father who is from India – probably a Brahmin or other upper caste: https://archive.li/Wkrcz
Her Parents divorced 2001, when she was still a child: https://archive.li/MFaXd
She was also Hillary Product Manager and has a STIA degree from Georgetown https://archive.li/http://www.p2016.org/clinton/clintonorggen.html
STIA sounds probably only as good as the classes that one chooses to take: https://archive.li/eKsGb
Basta with blaming Hillary for this and everything else. This looks like Buttigieg and possibly Silicon Valley. At the minimum it’s a bunch of politically connected incompetents. Considering that Hillary’s church has just announced a split over the issue of homosexual clergy, it is doubtful that she is involved in this Iowa fiasco.

One of the rare truths that Trump has ever spoken is that he is, indeed, the only clear winner in Iowa (and not just the Republican nomination in Iowa).