November 7th, 2008: How Obama Won

Barack Obama ran a near flawless campaign. Not only did he run a great campaign, but they had the advantage of a President not being approved of very much (28%) and the country going on the wrong track (84%). These are natural advantages to the party that is out of power. Throw on top of that that the biggest Economic crisis since the great depression came to a climax a mere month and a half before the election.

 

So, Obama clearly had a house edge. Still, to pin this victory on house edges wholly would be a huge disservice to the Obama campaign. His campaign was the campaign that was much, much better at staying on message. This is the number one accomplishment of the way the Obama campaign was run. Obama, a man who comes across as someone who would be a great poker player because he has ice in his veins (Phil Ivy anyone?), put up with zero leaks in his campaign.

 

We could look at a lot of examples, but I want to look at one that stood out to me in particular. One day after Obama’s amazing convention speech, John McCain caught the Obama campaign, along with the rest of the world (minus me and a few other bloggers) off guard with the selection as Sarah Palin as VP. Bill Burton, Obama campaign spokesman issued the following statement: "Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency,"

 

This was a clear mistake, as the Obama team quickly realized that if they attack the VPs experience, which would only leave the door open to attack Barack Obama, who experience was just as narrow, being a guy who was only in the senate for 100 working days before declaring his run for the Presidency. When they Obama campaign realized this error, they put a stop to any attack on Palin’s experience. On the contrary, they shower her with praise when directly asked, and then went back to linking John McCain to George W. Bush.

 

While many of their liberal friends were up in arms not understanding why they were allowing Palin to go unchecked, they did not panic. They knew that that was a battle they could not win, and they kept on message with the battle they could win. As Palin was released to the public, she became a very polarizing figure without the Obama campaign tbeing the ones doing the attacking. Palin’s first two weeks seemed to good to be true. The Obama campaign knew that they were, and they let the game come to them, rather than hitting the panic button.

 

So, controlling the message was something that the Obama team excelled at. It was clear that the McCain team did not, as many surrogates went off message (Michelle Bachmann, Rudy Giuliani often in interviews, just to name 2). Of course, Obama killed in the fundraising department. This allowed him to play in many states that he would have never otherwise been able to play with. He was able to play in states such as Montana, North Dakota and Georgia. McCain had to spend resources in places he never thought he had to. In the case of Florida, Obama spent so much money that he was able to force McCain into the state and by then he was not able to make up the difference.

 

The last thing to note is the local field operations, which were the best ever. Barack Obama was able to over perform John Kerry’s numbers in EVERY county in Indiana. Most counties he over performed by over 10 percentage points. This idea of getting out the young vote actually did not pan out (even though the media says otherwise, the vote went up 1% or less as percentage of total vote from 2004), but what the Obama campaign did do was find every person who was voting for them and get them out to the polls. Without this massive movement on the ground, Obama don’t win Indiana or North Carolina.

 

So, there are a lot of ways to slice and dice the 2008. Really, in the end its simple, Obama was able to get to get the voters to but his message, while at the same time rejecting John McCain. A solid win by a more than solid staff in very favorable conditions. Quite impressive.