In praise of the Obama campaign
Thinking about last night's speech, you've got to credit the Obama campaign staff again. You could certainly argue that they're not the best at soundbite back and forth, having been bested at that by Hillary Clinton in the primary and losing alot of the early soundbite rounds to McCain, but they do other things so well.
They are lightyears ahead of anything we've ever seen in branding and imaging (they own "hope," they own "change," they own most of the iconic images thus far,) and the evidence seems to be that their technology infused groundgame will likely be revolutionary.
In many regards they're running an entirely different kind of campaign than we've ever seen before, and I don't think that gets enough credit.
(If you want an idea of what kind of president Obama will be, his campaign is probably your best guide. He's modern, willing to integrate new ideas, very results oriented, demands discipline, and works tightly with a small group of trusted people. He's smart with an edge that's not, at first apparent. He surrounds himself with very smart people. He's willing to smile and shake hands with his enemies if it will get what he wants done. And most of all he's deliberate. He doesn't tend to react to anything off the cuff. He sets his plan and sticks to it, sometimes maddeningly so.)
Last, in talking about the campaign, I also think I need to reinclude the strategy that won the primary. They looked at the "metric" (the elected delegate count,) and locked in on that as the sole focus. The efficiency in the allocation of money to delegates is how they won. They figured out how to lose states but win delegates. They got down into the details of the game, district by district, and allocated their effort at that micro level with a level of assessment that was remarkable. They figured out a way to build a win around Hillary Clinton's established demographics. Primary after primary, the best estimates of the delegate allocation came not from the media or from neutrals, but, instead, came out of the Obama campaign.
When people keep talking about battleground states and the ground game, I keep remembering that.
(Sorry for all the "soft" blogging this morning. I usually try to be brief and link heavy, but I'm kinda trying to get my head around last night, and writing it out tends to help me.)
They are lightyears ahead of anything we've ever seen in branding and imaging (they own "hope," they own "change," they own most of the iconic images thus far,) and the evidence seems to be that their technology infused groundgame will likely be revolutionary.
In many regards they're running an entirely different kind of campaign than we've ever seen before, and I don't think that gets enough credit.
(If you want an idea of what kind of president Obama will be, his campaign is probably your best guide. He's modern, willing to integrate new ideas, very results oriented, demands discipline, and works tightly with a small group of trusted people. He's smart with an edge that's not, at first apparent. He surrounds himself with very smart people. He's willing to smile and shake hands with his enemies if it will get what he wants done. And most of all he's deliberate. He doesn't tend to react to anything off the cuff. He sets his plan and sticks to it, sometimes maddeningly so.)
Last, in talking about the campaign, I also think I need to reinclude the strategy that won the primary. They looked at the "metric" (the elected delegate count,) and locked in on that as the sole focus. The efficiency in the allocation of money to delegates is how they won. They figured out how to lose states but win delegates. They got down into the details of the game, district by district, and allocated their effort at that micro level with a level of assessment that was remarkable. They figured out a way to build a win around Hillary Clinton's established demographics. Primary after primary, the best estimates of the delegate allocation came not from the media or from neutrals, but, instead, came out of the Obama campaign.
When people keep talking about battleground states and the ground game, I keep remembering that.
(Sorry for all the "soft" blogging this morning. I usually try to be brief and link heavy, but I'm kinda trying to get my head around last night, and writing it out tends to help me.)
posted by mikevotes at
6:00 AM
2 Comments:
Don't be sorry Mike--I know there's a lot of horsepower behind those brief, link-heavy posts, and really don't know how you do it on a sustained basis.
You routinely take things that aren't remarked upon in the media narrative and shine light on them:
"Primary after primary, the best estimates of the delegate allocation came not from the media or from neutrals, but, instead, came out of the Obama campaign."
That's a really telling detail the people who make their riches off the machine completely missed.
By
MarcLord, at 1:28 PM
Thanks, that's my goal. I figure a link or two, or a story or two, or a picture or two will keep people coming by when I slip into my self indulgent periods.
And, I was really amazed at the accuracy of the Obama delegate projections. Primary after primary they were within one or two, and, given that primary, that is a remarkable degree of "intelligence."
By
mikevotes, at 2:23 PM
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