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Five Lessons from Obama's Campaign That Aren't Marketing Pseudospeak
A Broken Media Looks Back At The Campaign
McCain's Crazy Pastor Turns To Ronn [sic] Torossian For Counsel
Obama: Too Dominican

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Iceland Spar
11/10/08

In reply to Five Lessons from Obama's Campaign That Aren't Marketing Pseudospeak
Nate Silver (basically an ex-officio part of Obama's campaign) also proved that the media spends a ton of money on polling and no where near enough on hiring people who can interpert the results.
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tunamelt
11/10/08

In reply to Five Lessons from Obama's Campaign That Aren't Marketing Pseudospeak
I dunno. Donating my status helped GOTV, but that's because I donated my status to "Yes on Measure R" and when my friends were voting, they were like, "WTF is Measure R?" ... "I dunno, tunamelt said vote yes, so we might as well."

And it passed, dammit.
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tunamelt
11/10/08

@tunamelt: I guess this is like yard signs. They only work if nobody knows what the race is for/who the candidates are.
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MissNormaDesmond
11/10/08

In reply to Five Lessons from Obama's Campaign That Aren't Marketing Pseudospeak
Not to be all grumpy and contrarian, but were you planning on supporting any of these claims with evidence? The link you give for Item #1, for example, really doesn't support your argument at all. Not that I think the Facebook business did much besides allow a lot of people to give vent to their enthusiasm, but it certainly didn't do him any harm. And to the extent it might have fostered enthusiasm, and encouraged people to volunteer -- and as it happens a lot of the people I knew who were Obamifying their Facebook pages actually were volunteering in various ways -- it could have been helpful.

It's not that I necessarily think you're wrong, it's just that I have a dream that the days of people making opinionated claims they make no effort to back up with supporting argument or evidence will end, and we will attempt to convince one another of our points of view with something more than "because my political philosophy/ideological bent/Jesus tells me so".

Oh, and as regards 3., false dichotomies are my pet peeve. Both things can be, and most likely were, true.
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MissNormaDesmond
11/10/08

@MissNormaDesmond: Scratch that overly diffident last sentence. Both things certainly were true.
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veganrampage2
11/10/08

In reply to Five Lessons from Obama's Campaign That Aren't Marketing Pseudospeak
I consider myself a well above average idiot thank you very much.
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Astroblack
11/10/08

In reply to Five Lessons from Obama's Campaign That Aren't Marketing Pseudospeak
Thank you for #1. When I get into a political conversation with my under 25 friends and they start in with the "Hey, we should start a website that..." I tune out. Yes, it is a powerful medium for some uses, but some college educated younguns tend to overestimate the Internet usage of average Americans. And let's face it, if people are online they're probably watching porn on Xtube, not looking for your Anarcho-Vegan social networking site.
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Kid Twist
11/10/08

@Astroblack: I'm usually looking for anarcho-vegan porn.
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RandomLunatic
11/10/08

In reply to Five Lessons from Obama's Campaign That Aren't Marketing Pseudospeak
I'm so glad you called bullshit on the whole Facebook activism thing. I did none of that because it just struck me as silly, and I'm more convinced than ever that it was.
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Sproing
11/10/08

@user5000: I donated my chat icon to No on Prop 8. If you tell me it didn't help I may cry.
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Aaron Altman
11/10/08

In reply to Five Lessons from Obama's Campaign That Aren't Marketing Pseudospeak
Things to do after an election:

1) Play around with "People You May Know" application on Facebook;

2) Buy more airtime for "Saved By Zero" Toyota campaign;

3) Get Nate Silver guest spot on Numbers.
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uninspired
11/10/08

@Aaron Altman: Don't joke about "Saved By Zero". My DVR fast-forward feature is starting to burn out.
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Aaron Altman
11/10/08

@uninspired: My ears bleed, and my tympanum doth retire in protest each time it comes on.
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Lymed
11/10/08

In reply to Five Lessons from Obama's Campaign That Aren't Marketing Pseudospeak
Organizing. About 50 offices in Virginia. Taking people from large rallies straight to early voting locations. Texting people to volunteer on a daily basis. GOTV wins elections. Community organizers are darn good at GOTV.
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uninspired
11/10/08

@Lymed: Agreed. Obama's large ground operation, in part due to the primary battle, allowed him to reach every voter in some states.

Aside from Obama, Howard Dean launched the "50-State Strategy" back in 2005 which opened a lot of new field offices in traditionally red areas. This laid the groundwork not only for Obama, but Congressional gains in 2006/08.
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♥AntiSocialSocialite♥
11/10/08

In reply to Five Lessons from Obama's Campaign That Aren't Marketing Pseudospeak
I just watched THE WAR ROOM a few days ago and it's crazy how similar the campaigns were:

"4 more years of Bush... Change vs. More of the Same.... It's the economy, stupid... Don't forget about Healthcare..."

Really, nothing has changed... It's all cyclical.

That said, it was HILARIOUS to see them reading everything in the newspapers and actually watching television to get state by state election results and calling, mailing, and wiring information - when the Obama campaign used the Internet like never before... a lot has changed in 16 years...

especially James Carville's face... George Stephanopoulous is still adorable.
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blogissuchanuglyword
11/10/08

In reply to Five Lessons from Obama's Campaign That Aren't Marketing Pseudospeak
Tell people what they want to hear, when they want to hear it, and they will pronouce you a genious who, like, totally gets them.
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Weegee's bored
11/10/08

In reply to Five Lessons from Obama's Campaign That Aren't Marketing Pseudospeak
I'll go with 4, 3 and 2, in that order. The pendulum swang. The candidate was swank. He had more money to spend.

Among the things that made him a better candidate uniqueness (half black, African name [I persist in believing that it helped him], and newness*).

* See also Jack Kennedy and Jimmy Carter.
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Urbania
11/10/08

In reply to Five Lessons from Obama's Campaign That Aren't Marketing Pseudospeak
Face To Face conversations always rule the day. That's why the candidate matters for now and ever more. The candidate is likeable, then his face to face persuades people, and then it grows from there with other people having conversations to their friends.

TV is the other 50%.
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Rachel Marsden
11/10/08

In reply to Five Lessons from Obama's Campaign That Aren't Marketing Pseudospeak
This is a great piece. 100% bang-on.
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Aaron Altman
11/10/08

@Rachel Marsden: Hear, hear.
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SinisterRouge
11/10/08

In reply to Five Lessons from Obama's Campaign That Aren't Marketing Pseudospeak
Don't tell anyone about #5. It will crush hopes and dreams.

#1 is my favorite. You mean joining 1 Million Strong for Obama doesn't do jack shit to get even ONE vote?
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scarletmenace
11/10/08

@SinisterRouge: Does that mean I can change my middle name back from "Hussein"? I'm kinda getting used to it.
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NefariousNewt
11/03/08

In reply to A Broken Media Looks Back At The Campaign
We've slogged through the morass of remembrances today in order to answer the meta-question that really matters: what did this campaign mean to the media?

Why? Who cares? The media dropped the ball throughout the campaign. Too much deference was shown to some. Reporting was thin on real issues. Minor points were made into mountains. For all the screaming from the right about "liberal bias," I tend to think there was none, just a lot of pencil-pushers trying to make deadline with trite words and incomprehensible tracts on pointless issues.

If the media learns anything from the postmortem of this campaign, it's that next time, they need to suck it up and be more like journalists and less like puppets.
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