Obama’s 11 Principles The basic ingredients for Obama’s success were a new, authentic political candidate and a country desperate for Change. But then there is the process of getting nominated and elected. Regardless of who designed the electoral strategy and have so far effectively carried it out, Barack Obama himself ultimately bears responsibility for its success or failure. But here are eleven organizational principles of the Obama ’08 campaign I have identified that help explain how far he has come to date: 1. Conduct campaign like a business 2. Eschew staff “drama” 3. Apply community organization techniques 4. Ground game is to identify supporters, register voters and get-out-the-vote 5. Where practical, use motivated volunteers 6. Emphasize “early states,” paying particular attention to Iowa as first contest 7. “Free media” trumps paid media 8. Ride momentum of early successes 9. Compete for delegates in every contest 10. Maximize results down to the congressional district level 11. Grass roots can trump party establishment and machinery The Clinton Myth Unmasked The Obama campaign’s most important achievement has been largely obscured by the media’s coverage of the contest. He attracted experienced strategists and field operatives from earlier contests to his Chicago headquarters, and received the first clear indicator he could succeed in fundraising when his “early money” rivaled Clinton’s “old money”. No one anticipated, however, that Obama would achieve his initial and most important electoral objective, and prevent Hillary Clinton from effectively winning any of the four “early states.” After all, in delegate counts, she came in third in Iowa, tied in NH, lost NV by one, and was trounced in SC. It is only the media’s acceptance of the revisionist myth spun by her campaign into widely-believed truth, that the contest was close, and the distraction of the subsequent blood match that has disguised this fact. And only those who have worked with them in Washington could anticipate the desperate measures that Clintons would resort to against Obama before the race for the Democratic nomination would end. They took a calculated gamble by tossing their most loyal constituency under the bus, the African American community that stuck with Bill Clinton through his darkest hours and was mostly pro-Hillary when the contest started. The gamble failed and ultimately backfired. |
