10 Behind the Scenes Secrets to Obama's 2012 Victory (John Kerry, unemployment rate, interview)

[workaholics]

from a new book about the behind the scenes of the 2012 race

1) Obama killed a Bin Laden joke before the white house correspondents dinner in 2011 because...well you know.

2) Romney hired GOP veterans devoid of creativity. They constantly passed over good ideas for campaign ads in favor of more classic approaches, which didn't work.

3) Applicants had to go through an insane vetting process to get into Obama's data team, making it much better than Romney's

4) The power of Cristina Saralegui- the latina Oprah. The Univision talk show host is incredibly popular with Hispanics, and her Obama ads ran constantly on Spanish TV stations. Many were unaware how influential her support for Obama was with Hispanics.

5) It was a bartender who secretly recorded the 47% video

6) Obama got lucky on the September Jobs Report. It was reported that the economy created 114K jobs and the unemployment rate dropped 1/10 of a point. However, negative job growth and an unemployment rise of 1/10 of a point were within the margin of error. So if the figures had come out more negatively, it could have really hurt Obama's chances.

7) During the townhall debate, Obama's team suspected Romney would accuse him of not describing the Benghazi attack as an act of terror. They practiced a response, which Obama used during the debate when Romney made the accusation. His quick and strong response helped turn his fortunes around after the first debate loss.

8) Al Sharpton did an amazing job energizing black voters by making voter suppression an issue. He was one of the campaign's secret weapons used to turn out the black vote. He said that black people vote when they're proud or angry. They were proud in 2008 and in 2012, Sharpton made them angry about voter suppression efforts enacted by Republican legislatures.

9) The Obama campaign mastered facebook. 600K of Obama's FB friends contacted 3.5 million voters in swing states alone during the campaign, and nearly a million of them got involved in the campaign somehow.

10) Obama's ground game was much better. On the Sunday before the election, Romney announced that the campaign had knocked on 75,000 doors around the country. At the same time, Obama's team had knocked on 376,000.



10 Behind-The-Scenes Secrets To Obama's 2012 Victory

[GWhopper]

Originally Posted by workaholics

from a new book about the behind the scenes of the 2012 race

1) Obama killed a Bin Laden joke before the white house correspondents dinner in 2011 because...well you know.

2) Romney hired GOP veterans devoid of creativity. They constantly passed over good ideas for campaign ads in favor of more classic approaches, which didn't work.

3) Applicants had to go through an insane vetting process to get into Obama's data team, making it much better than Romney's

4) The power of Cristina Saralegui- the latina Oprah. The Univision talk show host is incredibly popular with Hispanics, and her Obama ads ran constantly on Spanish TV stations. Many were unaware how influential her support for Obama was with Hispanics.

5) It was a bartender who secretly recorded the 47% video

6) Obama got lucky on the September Jobs Report. It was reported that the economy created 114K jobs and the unemployment rate dropped 1/10 of a point. However, negative job growth and an unemployment rise of 1/10 of a point were within the margin of error. So if the figures had come out more negatively, it could have really hurt Obama's chances.

7) During the townhall debate, Obama's team suspected Romney would accuse him of not describing the Benghazi attack as an act of terror. They practiced a response, which Obama used during the debate when Romney made the accusation. His quick and strong response helped turn his fortunes around after the first debate loss.

8) Al Sharpton did an amazing job energizing black voters by making voter suppression an issue. He was one of the campaign's secret weapons used to turn out the black vote. He said that black people vote when they're proud or angry. They were proud in 2008 and in 2012, Sharpton made them angry about voter suppression efforts enacted by Republican legislatures.

9) The Obama campaign mastered facebook. 600K of Obama's FB friends contacted 3.5 million voters in swing states alone during the campaign, and nearly a million of them got involved in the campaign somehow.

10) Obama's ground game was much better. On the Sunday before the election, Romney announced that the campaign had knocked on 75,000 doors around the country. At the same time, Obama's team had knocked on 376,000.



10 Behind-The-Scenes Secrets To Obama's 2012 Victory

He runs a good campaign. I'll give him that. I just wish he governed in the same manner.

[workaholics]

As an Obama supporter, I'll say that he has done a decent job at governing, but he's not the best. If anything, he's the figurehead for a huge political movement of young people, progressives, immigrants and minorities that Obama's campaign team was able to expertly mobilize and translate into votes. Reagan was kind of the same thing. Right now the Republican party doesn't have anyone like Obama who can energize conservatives in the same way.

[wutitiz]

As an Obama opponent, I'll say that he is brilliant in many regards, and running a campaign is one of them. He wasn't exaggerating when he said "I'm LeBron, baby." I recently posted an interview of a DC lawyer who said that Obama has redefined the executive branch. All the scandals are probably not so much incompetence as the admin attempting to push the envelope in order to crush right wing opposition.

Richard Nixon was generally regarded as a gifted and brilliant politico too.

[wade52]

The biggest thing Obama had going for him was the insipid, out-of-date effort by the GOP and their "Mr 1%" candidate. It's like the Pubs weren't even interested in winning. Yet to this day, they claim they were serious.

[Goinback2011]

I agree, Romney was the John Kerry of this election. Republicans wanted the façade of electability in a guy who was about an inch deep. I'll bet even Romney didn't vote for Romney.

[ELR123]

Obama runs a great campaign, no doubt. However Republicans largely have themselves and their rhetoric (or the rhetoric of some) to blame for the loss.