Why Obama Won – part 1
Friday, November 14th, 2008
As promised, my amateur assessment of the reasons behind the Obama victory.
A clear and consistent message
US presidential elections are about creating a narrative – who your candidate is and what they’ll do for the country if you vote for them. The simplicity and consistency of the Obama message was one of the best performances in modern politics. What did Obama believe in? Change and Hope. It was a message he’d started refining in his magnificent speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. It’s a great speech and a clear reminder of how powerful a tool speech-writing and oratory can be.
The McCain narrative was all about his past – his long service to the US in the military, his time in a prisoner of war camp, his seat at the table for many of the major political decisions of the last two decades. It was if they thought time was reversing and McCain was running to be president for 2008 to 2000.
Logistics
Politics mattered in this election. The politics of organisation, of fundraising, of securing volunteers mattered in this election.
The Howard Dean-driven strategy of competing in all states and in every possible county they could paid off big time. I read plenty of reports during the campaign that McCain offices would close early and remain shut on weekends because of a lack of volunteers while Obama offices would still be open until 7pm on weeknights and across the weekend. But more importantly, by refusing to give up on solidly Republican counties, the Democrats made their job easier in battleground states like Virginia and North Carolina. The Democrats could have easily decided to not establish offices or have volunteers in solidly Republican counties where the vote for Bush in 2004 had been in the order of 70% or 75%. But by setting up shop and working hard they managed to reduce the McCain vote in some of those areas to 55% or 60%. They mightn’t have won many of those types of places but that didn’t matter. The broad strategy meant narrowing
In this sense the prolonged primary race between Obama and Clinton helped the Democrats. Each time they went to a new state for a primary they attracted tens of thousands of new voters. The Democrats had access to all these extra names and addresses when the big show came to town. The Obama/Clinton contest had made the party stronger.
Obama’s decision to eschew public financing for his campaign was another political masterstroke. Although it probably delivered the death knell for public financing of’ presidential campaigns it had to be done. The Republican Party itself is still way ahead of the Democrats when it comes to fund raising. In this election the Republican Party raised $100 million more in political donations than their Democrat rivals. So the Obama camp made the strategic decision to ditch the guaranteed $85 million public finance limit and see how much they could raise on their own. This is entirely why Obama was able to outspend McCain three to one for the last month of the campaign.
Tomorrow: Age and Race as Indicators of Change, and The Palin Gambit and other McCain errors
