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2008-11-05 08:48:00
By Richard Lister
BBC News, Washington
Two years ago, Barack Obama was barely a blip on America's political radar.
But, with a brilliant, disciplined campaign, a vast amount of money and a
favourable political climate, the junior senator from Illinois has risen to the
most powerful job in the world.
His campaign will be a template for those seeking to replace him.
It was, even Republican strategists admit, a technically perfect ground
campaign.
The money was key. Mr Obama realised during the primary contest that he had
developed an extremely broad donor base, which he could keep going back to for
money.
So, he rejected federal funding for his campaign and the financial limits that
came with it.
Army of helpers
With the help of Facebook founder Chris Hughes - who devised an innovative
internet fundraising system - the campaign eventually attracted more than three
million donors. They donated about $650m ( 403m) - more than both presidential
contenders in 2004 combined.
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Club-goers in Hollywood say healthcare issues won the vote
Mr Obama had the money for four times as many campaign offices as Mr McCain and
a vast army of campaign staff and volunteers. They developed and exploited a
vast database of information about potential donors and voters in every key
state.
Everyone who visited the Obama website was asked to sign up to get more
information. Everyone who did so was asked to contribute, or volunteer. If they
did, they received several follow-up calls and messages asking for more money,
or more assistance.
That fundraising ground campaign left him well equipped for the air war.
TV advertising is the life-blood of a campaign which has to span some 3.5m
square miles (9m sq km) and 300 million people, and Mr Obama had no problem
buying airtime.
Masterful operation
In some swing states in the final weeks of the campaign, he was outspending Mr
McCain by a ratio of four to one. His team again tapped into the internet,
targeting ads at those online.
They even bought ad-space embedded in video games. Mr Obama could afford to
campaign in Republican strongholds and force Mr McCain to spread his limited
resources ever thinner, sucking his resources away from swing states.
At the same time the campaign was masterful at getting out the vote. It ran a
huge registration drive for likely Democrats - adding more than 300,000 people
to the voter rolls in Florida alone.
Realising that so many new voters could overwhelm polling places on voting day,
the campaign made early voting a priority in states where it is allowed. More
people cast their votes before election day this year than ever before - more
than 29 million in 30 states, according to preliminary data.
All of this worked of course because of Barack Obama's appeal as a candidate.
He is a superb orator who can work a crowd in the Bill Clinton tradition.
His image was wholesome; a self-made family man with one house, one car - and
one family. It was a contrast to John McCain who divorced the wife who waited
for him through the Vietnam war, married an heiress and couldn't remember how
many houses he had.
Anti-Bush candidate
Mr Obama was able to connect more deeply with more diverse voting blocks. He
struck a chord with younger voters, won over Hispanic and Jewish voters who had
been Republicans in the past, and of course got out the black vote like no
president before him.
Mr Obama's single, consistent message of change was appealing when almost nine
out of 10 Americans believed their country was "on the wrong track".
He could easily position himself as the anti-Bush candidate in a way Mr McCain
struggled to do. President Bush had lower approval ratings than the disgraced
Richard Nixon, and Mr Obama's relentless campaign message was that John McCain
had voted with him 90% of the time.
The polls suggested more people trusted Mr Obama to fix the economy and when
the financial crisis struck he was best placed to take political advantage of
it.
His persistent focus on how to help those most impoverished by eight years of
George Bush's leadership seemed a better fit for the times; a sharp contrast to
the kind of tax cuts which were now a central plank of the McCain campaign and
would disproportionately benefit the wealthy.
Difference a strength
Ultimately, even Mr McCain's great political strength as a war hero with
decades of foreign experience was eclipsed.
Mr Obama's selection of the veteran foreign policy expert, Senator Joe Biden,
as his running mate helped close the experience gap.
He insisted too that judgement was more important than experience and over the
course of the campaign the political consensus seemed to shift to his ideas.
Mr Obama called for a withdrawal timeline in Iraq, defending Afghanistan's
borders by launching raids inside Pakistan when required and talking to
America's enemies.
Slowly and quietly even the Bush Administration came to accept those ideas,
while John McCain seemed ever more isolated as he continued to reject them.
Barack Obama said he didn't "look like other Presidents on the dollar bill".
Although that was a reference to his colour, he was different in so many ways
to the established political aristocracy, that in a year when Americans were
craving something new, his differences turned out to be his part of his
strength.